As best as I can figure (and I can usually figure pretty well), Barack Obama’s re-election will be beneficial for most Americans. What, after all is America if not her 330 million inhabitants (or at least 99% of them)? For reasons that I may go into at a later date, I think that Tuesday’s election results will be good for America in the long run and, hopefully in the immediate future, as well. What happens next will be determined by the retention level of any lessons learned this week by obstructionist idealogs.

In a larger sense, America is a loser. While some might point to the presidency of Barack Obama as evidence that issues of race relations have been resolved, I think that it only serves to highlight deep seated resentment, antipathy and bigotry. As racial epithets in absentia, it was easy to hang labels on this president to differentiate him from “regular” Americans. He was a Communist, a Socialist, foreign-born, un-American, Nazi and countless other code words for not white.

At one of the debates Chris Matthews asked a Romney supporter, who had just accused the President of being a Socialist what she meant by that word. She just glared at him and said that she knew what she meant. Clearly, since 2008 “Socialism” has taken on a new, non-political meaning. Glen Beck, before he got kicked off FOX continually warned of the evils of “Social Justice”. I may be naive, but isn’t social justice the foundation of our democracy, the belief that all men are equal in the eyes of the law?

Over and over again we heard that we had to “take back our country”. Take it back from whom? From the 47% who had the audacity to elect a young, non-white man instead of an old white one? The President was negated and demeaned, as were his supporters. Donald Trump de-legitimized the election itself, saying that it was a travesty, that democracy was dead. Apparently, democracy only works if your candidate wins. Admittedly, the election was a bit of a travesty, especially when the Pennsylvania States Attorney went to court to fight for photo ID laws to prevent the voter fraud of which there was not one single case in evidence.

We hear a lot about entitlements. Having worked all my life and paid into the system for all that time, I do believe that I am entitled to my Social Security benefits. The people that seem most attached to their entitlements, though are those who have the connections and the resources to ensure them. They believe that they are entitled to preferential tax treatment both for themselves and their heirs. So attached are they to their entitlements, it’s become practice and policy to attempt to disenfranchise those who may errantly support an outsider through voter supression.

For those of us in the 47%, it would be wise to remember that when we hear certain politicians refer to the “will of the American people”, they are not refering to us.