I’m dashing off a new Goldberg File right this moment so I’ll be gone for like 10 maybe 15 minutes (I kid, I kid). But I just thought I’d make one quick point: The beat goes on. As anyone whose heard me give my standard stump speech on my book knows, I’m a big believer in the idea that the battle is eternal. There will always be lots of people who view (I would say “misunderstand”) the role of government to be a centralizing source of love, meaning, and wish-fulfillment, and there will always be people who see government as a necessary evil. Sometimes — often — these views will coexist in us at the same time. Even more often, we will alternate between these views, as will the country. That means that conservatives will never completely win, but it also means they will never completely lose either. Rather, it is an eternal fight, with many victories ahead and many defeats. The trick is to have more victories and have them be more lasting than your defeats. For conservatives, who do not believe in earthbound utopias or in the possibility of a real “New Politics” more than once every, say, 50 or 500 years, this should be good news or at least easier to take than it is for progressives who constantly want to turn the page, create new eras, kill old ideologies, etc.
The fight goes on. And, I think, it’s a good fight.
This is all a highfalutin way of saying that last night’s staggering victory was awesome, but it ain’t the end of anything. It’s just another beginning — because it’s beginnings as far as the eye can see, until the star falls into the sea.
Last November, after Obama’s big win, I posted this video from Deadwood on “how to take a beating” (some profanity, natch) and I was pleasantly surprised at how many readers said it bucked up their spirits.
No one back then thought political fortunes for conservatives could change so rapidly. But after dusting off and getting back in the fight, they did. So now, it’s time to do the Hamster Dance, and then get back in that fight, because it’s a long way from over.