Wasn't "Quiet Storm" Smokey Robinson?

That aside, I expect the right wing to become ever more strident and far more inclined to outright lies and screaming, over-the-top nonsense than they ever were during the Clinton administration. A coming tragedy, to be sure.

The very idea of a black president has to be driving these people slowly out of their minds.

As a lesson that most if not all of them will ignore, I offer once again these words (followed by my own thoughts), penned (more likely typed) by the late, great Mike Royko on the occasion of the election of Harold Washington as mayor of Chicago:

Relax, please. At least for the moment. There is time to become tense and angry when he fouls up as mayor - as anybody in that miserable job inevitably will do.

Until he fouls up, though, give him a chance.

(...)

He is far more understanding of the fears and fantasies of Chicago whites than we are of the frustrations of Chicago blacks.

The city isn't going to slide into the river. The sun will come up today and tomorrow...

If Washington is smart, which I think he is, he'll surround himself with the very best talents and minds available. And they're available.

If not, we'll survive and we'll throw him out.

(...)

Who knows, we might even wind up liking him.

Miss ya, Mike.

So now, to those very few Republicans who have bothered to read this: Relax. America will survive, and very likely thrive. No one, including Barack Obama, would ever seek the presidency without a deep love for this country.

In trying to damage the soon-to-be-elected Barack Obama, you are trying to damage America itself. Stop, just for one moment, and think. Think on this: You claim you love America. Yet you would rather rip this society* apart than see someone you dislike at the head of the table. You would destroy something you claim to love - and for what?

And it's not like you haven't tried enough already, even as part of the presidency you claim to admire, the disaster on legs of George W. Bush.

What is it with you Republicans?

Have you no sense, not of decency, for that you clearly do not. Rather, have you no sense whatsoever? Do you not see that in pursuing your divisive, destructive agenda, you wreak deep and long-lasting damage on that very nation you claim so loudly to love?

Give thanks, Republicans, that this is in fact, and will remain, America. In the societies you seem to so admire, the theocracies and authoritarian dictatorships scattered around too much of the world, when you're on the outs, as you soon will be, you'd be looking at prison or worse. By comparison, your concerns are infinitesimal.

We will have a nation indistinguishable in many ways from the one we see today. In the ways it does differ, you may even like it.

Show some good sense for one moment out of your benighted lives and become Americans again, rather than simply Republicans.

* I use the term "society" occasionally here as a deliberate choice. We do not live in an economy, we do not live in a nation, we live in a society. Understand the implications of that and you may feel your eyes opening a bit.