I Remember 5 November 2008
The British lit journal Five Dials asked eleven writers, including Suketu Mehta, Hari Kunzru, and J. Robert Lennon, to write the outcome of the election, from a future vantage point...Our own Lydia Millet had this to say:
WASHINGTON— Due to an epidemic that occurred in voting booths across the country—a sudden-onset fear of black men that's so common in America it has a statistical effect named after it—the margin of victory was smaller than many had predicted. This margin was reduced even further than polling had forecast by a media event, three days before the election, broadcasted exclusively by the Fox News Corporation and branded "The Healing of an American Family"—namely the small, discreet wedding of Sarah Palin's pregnant daughter to her unwilling yet nobly suffering boyfriend. Viewership was 110 million.Still, Barack Obama held on by the skin of his teeth, and now, as president elect, has the most extensive and paranoid Secret Service detail in history. Threats against his life roll in by the thousands, concentrated in the rural Southeast but trickling in, also, from other racist outposts across the country. The running joke among those who find the situation funny is that Joe Biden is the safest white man in the world.
Considerable euphoria on the coasts and other less-racist outposts followed the election, which has left liberals, minorities and other usually underrepresented groups feeling oddly vindicated and hopeful. John McCain, after delivering a cheerful concession speak that confused supporters and opponents alike with its puzzling allusions to "victory over the yellow man," is taking a well-deserved rest cure in one of his eight homes in Sedona, while Sarah Palin, who plans to resign the governorship in favor of work in the private sector, is busy signing sponsorship deals with a number of corporations, including a hockey face-guard manufacturer based in Duluth and the trendy Japanese maker of her wire-rimmed glasses.