We could turn from political discussion into political activism. Find ways to push issues, not just chat on. I think there are more than a few who are glad the election's over with the hope that some longstanding issues can finally be addressed. The danger of course is that they simply won't. But strike while iron's hot....

I know you're disappointed that Obama didn't run on any new ideas or nothing big in this election. So am I. I'm also upset how much money was spent to prop up the status quo and how weak and watered down the ACA is due to Obama's fruitless and stupid attempt to get a republican or two to sign on. I hated the stimulus bill's large focus on tax cuts over infrastructure repair and new building.

But this time continuation will not just happen. There is so much in the pipeline that has to be dealt with or change will come. Bush's tax cuts expire. One side will win and the other lose or the two sides will have to compromise. There are massive defense cuts, other cuts and other tax increases that will just happen unless again, one side capitulates or they work together to find compromise.

At the very least it will be interesting to watch them play their little game of chicken with our lives. As far as I'm concerned I'm willing to fall off the so called fiscal cliff rather than give in.

I'm very cheered, though, by the Warren win and by the state votes on same sex marriage and marijuana.  Good steps.  Also... Obama's in a much better economic position now and I think that changes the game.  Now he's managing a slow recovery, one totally in line with recoveries during deleveraging periods, rather than dealing with a crisis.  I'm resetting my expectations.

The Constitution was not designed to promote change, but states rights, lack of accountability, and often gridlock, in a government with powers divided among executive, legislative and judicial branches. Even the legislative branch lacks a unified leadership. There is a serious question as to whether our system of democracy is so antiquated that it is obsolete, and unable to act with speed and efficiency at a national level in the 21st century.

The built in gridlock is why the 14th Amendment of 1867 would never have passed if the rebel slave States of the South were not required to ratify it to regain self government and end military occupation, see the Act of the 39th Congress from March 2, 1867. The amendment defined citizenships, due process and equal protection under the law. It failed to achieve all these goals due to the obstruction from the Supreme Court.

Theodore Roosevelt was well known to dislike the philosophy of Thomas Jefferson to limit federal power, hindering Presidential action. When able to, he used the Antiquities Act to save the Grand Canyon. He got title to the land for the Panama Canal on his action alone, TR: "I took the Canal Zone and let Congress debate; and while the debate goes on, the canal does also."

Gridlock with the judiciary is why FDR threatened to increase the judges on the Supreme Court.

Regardless of the weaknesses of our system, we could not ask for a more competent leader to guide us forward than President Obama.

The pundit in me is not as cynical as yours seems to be.  What I take from last night is that the overall mean of our collective world view as a country is moving forward.   I could see it in young people but did not have faith that it was true of enough of us to prevent Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan from winning the white house.  

Of course there are many of a world view that are confused and don't understand what is going on and why we wouldn't want Romney and Ryan in charge.  Some will learn and move forward others will dig in and try harder to see their limited reality as the only way...

But in the slow moving change of civilization, last night gave me hope because of the people that voted even after our disappointments and disillusionment, people that stood in outrageously long lines to take a stand for their right to vote and have a voice, and for the many women elected that sends a message to the attacks against women's rights.

I am hopeful because slow though it may be, America is evolving.

Michael, I think there are some new things going on here--and it's possible that any actual changes in politicians or their approach to governing, might be the least important of the following factors.

1. The electoral turnout. The heavy turnout in 08 could possibly be explained by the novelty of choosing a black president. But this year's certainly can't. People came out in record numbers because by and large, people have realized that if they want to have a say in what government does, they are going to have to vote for it. Lots of reasons/factors in play, but that's the short story.

2. Political/electioneering strategy. Republicans (and Democrats) spent millions on attack ads and apparently did not manage to change anyone's mind about their vote. On the other hand, Minnesotans United for All Families used a strategy of fostering a couple of hundred personal conversations about gay marriage, letting people know that the support of a marriage commitment really is important to gay people. This strategy succeeded in changing the minds--and votes--of a very large number of people. Karl Rove is out; your lesbian granddaughter who wants to get married to her girlfriend is in. This is a watershed moment in political strategy.

3. Increased participation after the election. I think you have to figure that there is some real bench strength in this year's turnout. It's not going to be "go vote, then go home." People who stood in line for 7 hours waiting to vote are paying attention. I predict many more phone calls to congresspeople in the coming months on a wide variety of issues. Resistance to meaningful action in the halls of government is going to be tested. This may die down a bit as the nation's economic engine starts to run faster and provides an excuse to ignore what's going on in government, but I think we can expect people to be pretty tuned-in over the winter at least.

4. The requirement of sucking up to old rich white guys has been lifted. In any given roomful of people, the assumption that the old rich white guy must be the one in charge, no longer holds. I don't know how much more simply to say it than that. Dorothy's house has landed on the witch, and things will never be the same again. (This is in some ways silly, because the facts haven't changed overnight, and obviously in many cases the rich old white guys ARE still the ones in charge. We'll have to be careful with that. But the perception has changed, and eventually, the change in perception will drive the change itself.)

I don't think US govt will change overnight, but these changes do seem pretty solid, and things will happen.

Here's a  real good counter to your thoughts, from a Brit, Simon Jenkins:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/08/tribal-grunts-left-r...

I wasn't voting for change,  Change is neither desirable nor not per se:Adolph was a change from  Bruening. The change I was voting not to happen  was Romney's threat to abolish Obamacare

 Most presidential plans are, well, interesting.Obamacare isn't. .Real human beings will avoid  avoidable death and pain.Starting during this second term but then continuing for as long as O-care remains in effect which ,please God, will be forever. When future historians search  for a short hand way to refer to Obama, the second term,I hope it'll be when we started  our National Health system .

Education reform really means'Charter Schools providing  a  bargain for the 1% to send the brat to Brown . At our  expense..

Tax reform in an oxymoron.

It used to be said :ask Moynihan for help with a  visa and you got back an erudite discussion of the evolution of foreign policy and foreign travel and the feed back loop between them.Ask D'Amato, you got a visa 

Obamacare means if you're sick you get made non sick.

I don't want that to change.

Obama was a stronger candidate, but not particularly strong as a candidate and the opposition put up a particularly weak candidate to oppose him.  He was, however, the incumbent and what was strong was the multi-racial/ethnic, mutli-generational coalition determined to  keep him in office and prevent the Republicans from returning to power.

In the coming 4 years, the Democrats in the Senate, like the President, will play a strong hand weakly and will not stand up to the Republicans primarily because they are so compromised and beholden to the same corporate powers that fund and manipulate the GOP.  Remember where most of the President's campaign cash was coming from (spoiler alert: it wasn't from small donors).

The President proved in his four years, more than anything else, to be a staunch advocate not of change, but of the status quo.  His record is clear. 

On the mythical "global war on terror" the President adopted all of Bush's policies lock, stock and barrel.  On the Patriot Act and domestic spying, again the President adopted the Bush administration's positions and added some features even more extreme, more illegal, and more disrespectful of the innocent citizen's right to be left alone and to rest assured that he/she will not be the subject of arbitrary state policing powers similar to those of the secret police agencies in eastern Europe and Russia during the Soviet era.  The President's escalation of the Afghanistan War, his escalation of the use of drones and subsequently of the ongoing slaughter of hundreds if not thousands of innocent people, and his entirely illegal claim of having the right, on his word alone, to designate US Citizens as terrorists and to have them murdered on that same illegitimate authority are all shameful acts that Democrats have had little or no objection to these past four years.  The President, in his first term, tried several times to get the ball rolling on cutting Social Security and Medicare in the name of deficit reduction.  He caved in an allowed the Bush tax cuts to continue in return for precious little.  He got the Heritage Foundation's healthcare reform proposal passed which will cover many for the first time but do nothing about rising premiums or the unacceptable health outcomes of our medical system.  He did little to combat global warming and abandoned the top priority of the labor movement  (EFCA) almost immediately upon being sworn in.

People can fool themselves into believing that Obama has tried to bring change to our government by accepting all of the very poor excuses offered by the administration but the facts are stubborn and there's simply no evidence to support the claim that Obama has tried to bring change as promised--other than in platitudes and symbolic first efforts quickly abandoned.  To expect the population to be organized and demand change without any leadership is the worst kind of wooly minded thinking.

The President repeatedly promised on election night in his victory speech that he would "fight" for us.  Well, now that he's been reelected it is time for him to put up or shut up.  We will find out soon enough if he meant any of it. 

The faux "crisis" of the "fiscal cliff" will be a moment of great consequence for all of us little people.  The critical question will be whether or not Obama will again try to cut Social Security and Medicare and even Medicaid as part of a "grand bargain' to address the deficit as he did after his Catfood Commission recommended it.  I suspect that he will do just that.  And this will be billed as making "the tough choices" that needed to be made and Democrats (who would oppose any Republican making such a vile proposal) will go along with it because he's their guy. 

But of course the only sacrifice those "tough choices" will produce will be from workers who will have to work more years before being able to retire and receive less in retirement despite having paid for more all their lives or in other words, by stealing from the elderly and the poor.  And all this will be in service to making sure no significant cuts are made to the sacrosanct and obscene Pentagon budget along with preserving inexcusably low tax rates on the rich.