The opinion of a Stand Up Comic doesn’t matter much to anyone but it doesn’t change the fact that I am so proud to be an American today. There is nothing hilarious about this post and in fact I think we’ll see Saturday Night Live and Bill Maher struggle to come up with decent political jokes for a time. It’s easier to find comedy in stupid ideas. It’s hard to find comedy in poetry come to life. The idea that hope, true hope, prevailed last night makes me think that all those things I learned when I was a kid, all that bullshit about trying your best, anyone can do anything, tomorrow is another day, all of that might actually now be true.

So far, The Onion has the only truly funny thing to say about the election.

The headline reads, “Nation Finally Shitty Enough to Make Social Progress” and it’s true. Did it really take two un-winnable wars, a housing market crash, health care crisis, fuel crisis, job crisis, stock market crisis, and rampant corruption to vote for the smartest, most inspiring, visionary candidate? Is our distrust of all things brown to black really that strong? Well, yes it is. America is really really racist. Check out the reader posts at Foxnews.com. One of many examples:

“Comment by B.O. smells
November 4th, 2008 at 11:23 pm

McCain only lost b/c the election was rigged. When you have black panthers outside precincts with billy clubs telling white folks ” they don’t belong there” you have skewed results. Too many people have been threatened into voting for that thing. There should be a re-do. Have everyone mail in their vote. No more voter intimation.”

Are you kidding me? An army of Black Panthers keeping white people from voting?!?! Where is this guy from? The comments on the forums are stunningly ignorant and shamefully bigoted. Definitley check them out.

But there is some good news. Those people are dying everyday. The people who hate gays, Jews, Muslims, blacks, smart women, Mexicans, liberals, minorities of all colors, educated young people, they are all dying of old age.

What we saw last night was the death rattle of mainstream intolerance. There were states that remained true Red, my home state of South Carolina, for instance. And it is likely that these states will hold hard to their bigotry to the final breath of community sanctioned hatred exhales its last. But soon now, and this election gives me faith, soon now, Americans will once again value intelligence as something to aspire to not something that makes you an unpatriotic simpering coward. We will value honesty and not the semblance of honesty. And I really hope that we will work together, to turn the richest nation in the world into the WEALTHIEST. There is a true difference there between rich and wealthy and it has everything to do with how the people with the most, health, wealth, intellect, skills, treat the people with the least.