Yay Obama--NOW GET BACK TO WORK!

Yes, yesterday was an incredible day—one which I had been so doubtful would ever happen.

But as Obama said, this is only the beginning of the road to change. Right now, we have a rare, rare moment in which both the executive and legislative branches are in Democratic control. The last time we had that was over a decade ago, in 1993, and the Democrats fucked it up and nothing changed before the Republicans regained control of Congress. That could easily happen again this time around. With this massive loss, the Republicans are no doubt regrouping, figuring out where they went wrong, and will strike back at us harder than ever. That means that we have to make sure we make the most of what may end up being an all-too-short window to effect change.

It means we all have to write or call our representatives. To tell them which issues are most important to us and that we expect them to tackle those issues in this precious window of time. We have to find out which bills in Congress we want our representatives to support or oppose and tell them so. To join a group whose beliefs are most closely aligned with ours—the ACLU, NOW, the Los Angeles County Young Democrats, whatever—so that we can join an even more powerful choir of voices to make sure we are heard. And remind our fellow citizens—friends, family—to do all of the above as well.

As easy as it would be to lay back and hope our elected leaders do the work, we have to make sure to push them to make them live up to the promises they made us. This democracy is founded upon the ideals born in ancient Athens, where the citizens were involved in the political process on a constant basis, and as we saw last night, our democracy functions best when we do the same. In the words of that great fictional president in The American President, “America isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship.”

So pop that champagne, but after you finish the bottle, we gotta get back to work.