The wisdom of Yao and Shun was that they didn't treat all things alike: they devoted themselves to essentials first.

Mencius 13.46

I've been noticing how some conservatives are disgusted by Obama's victory.  They seem to suggest the joy being expressed over the election of the first African-American president is somehow distorted by liberal ideology. If Obama had been conservative or Republican, goes the implication, liberals in America would not be celebrating quite so rapturously (no specific links for this – I've picked it up from stray web comments and TV moments…I've been reading the increasingly unhinged commentary at The Corner too much…).

But think about this for a moment, the strange idea that Obama, or an Obama-like figure, might have been conservative and elected by the Republican party.  It is, of course, impossible. 

American conservatives long ago, at least since Nixon's southern strategy, threw in their lot with those political activists who were willing to mobilize racial fear as an electoral tool.  The failure of the Republican party to speak to or draw in African-Americans has been a durable element of American politics ever since, save, perhaps, for a momentary sleight of hand by Bush fils at the 2000 Republican convention.  Yes, there are black conservatives, a few; and some prominent black Republicans, again a few.  But the prospect that the Republican party could have recruited and nominated and supported to victory a black presidential candidate is, well, ludicrous. The southern Republican base would have shied away from a black candidate, even one, I suspect, as popular as Colin Powell or Condoleeza Rice.  Moreover, the conservative ideology of the party would have continued to repel many African-Americans, who would not have been willing to vote for a candidate on racial grounds alone.  A black Republican would have neither "energized the base" nor drawn in moderates. It never did happen because it could not happen.

In order for it to have been possible for the Republicans to nominate and elect a black president, they would have had to give up on their ideology and dominant political strategy, and those things happen only after a stunning defeat.  So, maybe some time in the future a re-made Republican party can elect a black president.  But, looking back, it was essentially impossible that it would have been a Republican to be the first black president.

And that is why conservative crying now is so disingenuous. Those of us who supported Obama celebrate because of the extraordinary historical moment that has unfolded.  And that moment was made possible by decades of work and struggle by the Democratic party.  To complain that the celebration would not be the same if Obama had been conservative or Republican is to complain about an impossibility.  It is to suggest a false inconsistency, or a latent hypocrisy of sorts, when, in fact, inconsistency is precisely what needs to be celebrated; and that inconsistency is this: Democrats have long supported and worked with African-Americans and listened to their concerns; conservatives and Republicans have not.

Or, in Mencian terms, the historical legacies of Democrats and Republicans as regards African-Americans are not alike, and we should, therefore, not treat them as if they were alike.

Hooray for Obama!