this year's winner

Few would argue that this year’s Presidential election was important. New and old issues became vital political opportunities. Like other Americans around the country, I was still awake at 3:30 EST this November 3rd morning, watching the Presidential election unfold. What has transpired into the most entertaining and strange election I have witnessed in my lifetime has resulted in what I see as a unanimous and monumental victory for the US voter.
I would like to take the time to introduce this year’s winner. This person is someone with whom you are very familiar but has, until now, stood on indecisive and questionable ground. For various and sometimes sordid reasons, this person has allowed the results of their apathy to rule decisions and determine the course of this great nation. For various and sometimes selfish reasons, this person has defended their own ignorance in the political arena. Words like “arrogant, undisciplined and irresponsible” could all be used to describe this person’s history of self-satisfied indecision, and one could argue where peril or havoc have thrived as a result.
But no more. For this person–this year’s winner–has, during this election, displayed something unique and most admired about the American political process: involvement. Gone are the days of silence and apathy; our winner has become engaged in American politics. This person has awakened from a slumber of abstinence and has taken the reigns of power, accepting political responsibility with great enthusiasm and becoming an American in a truest and historically hard-earned meaning of the word. This person has proven, for history, that Americans are a resilient and buoyant people who will not shut up and sit down but will be heard, and heard in record numbers. For that reason alone it is a decisive victory, and for that same reason please accept my congratulations on your overwhelming and decisive victory as an American citizen.
Over the years I have increased the size of the political soapbox on which I stand so increasingly you have had to endure my ranting opinions as someone who’s too conservative for liberals and too liberal for conservatives. I have never grown tired of my own voice, but I have been wearied by an American population that has often forgotten that the price of democracy is vigilance. I am encouraged that this election season has turned that tide, and this election season my rantings were few and far between, largely due to a lack of necessity. If I did not encourage your participation it was because I enjoyed the great show of participation and participation from both sides of the American political system. Yes, I voted and whether or not my selected candidate wins or not, true to the idea that involvement earns success, an election so closely contested and won means that either side is too large to be ignored. So we all speak, so shall we all be heard.
Now the American people are speaking and now we can continue this current status for the benefit of all. With my involvement with Amnesty International and human rights, I have often asked you to STAND for those who can not. Now I am proud and very moved by your successful effort to do that as an American voter. Thank you for standing, thank you for speaking, and thank you for being heard. Thank you for exercising a right that many in the world only know by hope or prayer. As is traditional for me as an American, I am optimistic about the opportunities we have in a America. As is traditional for me, I applaud your continued involvement in our political process.
You can make a difference afterall. God bless us, the American voter, the true winner of this year’s election. May we forever rediscover our power to change the world in which we live.