President-elect Barack Obama
Photo by Luke Thomas
By Jill Chapin
November 13, 2008
With President-elect Barack Obama’s stunning victory comes an unfamiliar lump in our throats as we try to grapple with this sense of exhilaration and hope against an economic meltdown, two wars, our environment in peril, and our healthcare mess making us figuratively and literally sick.
With so much to feel awful about, why do we feel so good?
Partly, it is simply what has always been referred to as that age-old American spirit of optimism that we seem to exude at improbable moments in our history. But this is not just an American phenomenon. This same euphoria is felt around the globe. Why do they feel so good too?
We certainly feel confident of his intellect. This guy is smart. Though young and relatively inexperienced, we sense he can lead this country with an ability to understand a world stage fraught with convoluted intricacies. Complex issues need to be met with his calm, measured deliberation, reassuring us that his decisions won’t be, well, mavericky.
Ultimately, though, our feel-good glow can be traced to his uncommon civility and grace, summed up in one word: Charm. He is gifted in teasing out of us those long-dormant feelings of renewed hope. He isn’t looking backward. Instead, he is charting out a future for us, inclusive and healing, even as he warns us that we all will have a role to play in our own renaissance.
A television station invited viewers to submit an item to be put on our next president’s to-do list. Someone suggested he give us a to-do list. Hungry to be part of the solution and demoralized by President Bush’s too short and self-indulgent list after 9-11 to simply go shopping, Yes we can has morphed from a campaign slogan into our battle cry to action. As improbable as it seems in this gluttonous age of ours, he is beginning to instill in us a desire to roll up our sleeves and do our part, with sacrifice and hard work.
It’s not just what we are learning about him; it’s what we are now learning about ourselves. He is making us take stock of our potential, not by preaching, but by example. We were devolving into feelings of near reverence for mediocrity but his presidency may restore the American dream of achievement through excellence. Of all the promises that we are hoping for from him, his elegant grace has already graced our lives in ways that we are just now beginning to appreciate.
He refused the bait of taking the low road in his campaign despite many opportunities to do so. Attacks on his patriotism and his faith were not returned. Slowly we came to realize that we actually can disagree without being disagreeable as he instead remained focused on his message and not on any messenger.
His classy determination to stay above the fray nudged us to feel more squeamish than usual about negativity and nastiness. Instead of hoping for a retort, we surprised even ourselves with our newfound preference for civility over vindictiveness.
Charm. Ultimately, it really is all about his graceful charm. He has it. He simply was born with it, hardwired in a way that encourages us to want to strive more to achieve our own personal best. As Henri-Frederic Amiel said, “Charm is the quality in others that makes us more satisfied with ourselves.”
A nineteen year-old black student validated Mr. Amiel’s words and brought tears to my eyes when asked by a TV reporter how he felt about having a black man as president of the United States. He replied with elegant simplicity: “It makes me want to be a better man.”
The Hunger Site
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