Obamania Sweeps Italy

Or better, the radical-chic part of my country. Conservatives and most common folks just keep going about their business.

Anyway, the other day at the supermarket I glanced at the front pages of the newspapers, and the most progressive ones had a thinly-disguised severe case of hots for Obama the Messiah. I don't recall the exact words, but the general tone was one of dream coming true, after so long and hard a wait.

What dream? Of course, the one of a person-of-colour as President of the USA. And a rather hardcore tranzist for that matter, because a Republican female-person-of-colour like Condoleeza Rice never was the matter of dreams - even if she reached a position of absolute regard in the administration.

What remains between the lines in those rags is the position that only the election of Barack Obama can mean that America has finally overcome its congenital racism and embraced the light of Changiness, Hopeitude and the Hug of the Whole World.

And the corollary is that the victory of McCain will show that America is still the old racist, capitalist and arrogant behemoth it has always been.

The fact that reasonable, knowledgeable and color-blind people may have rationally decided that Obama wouldn't be a good President of the USA is not allowed to enter the picture. It cannot be, for cognitive dissonance must be kept at bay at any cost.