I've written much about the politics of fear that took hold shortly after the world changed on September 11, 2001. The pure, naked opportunism of the Bush administration was apparent within a few short weeks. Taking lemons and making lemonade is one thing. Taking several thousand dead Americans and greasing the gears of your ideological agenda with their blood is another thing entirely.

It was a sad period in our history... watching the neoconservatives unzip their flies and take a collective leak on the Constitution. But wait... the concessions that the Bush administration made to Al-Qaeda were necessary, no? I mean, sure... we became less free as citizens... we lost some moral high ground as well, but that was to be expected, right?

One might argue that a truly free people cannot be kept safe from terrorists, because the very freedom they enjoy makes them vulnerable. The moral high ground we kept made us a more visible target. We need warrantless wiretapping and torture in order to remain safe, right?

Right?

From September 12, 2001 to the present, the Republicans banked on fear to keep them in power. Luckily, the American people can't run on fear as fuel for very long (about five years, apparently.) As a people, we run much better on hope. What Barack Obama did was offer us this fuel, and point to the horizon and say "Let's go there."

On Novemer 4th, 2008, the world changed again. The politics of fear were banished by the politics of hope. There is no room for the politics of fear anymore, and therefore the rug was effectively pulled out from under the Republican party. The half-wits who cling to this paradigm march on to irrelevance, led by head crypt-keeper Dick Cheney, and in the most cynical corners of my brain, I wonder if they don't hope for another opportunity to manipulate the terrified masses.

Goodbye, November 3rd Republicans.