Let's Spread the Joys of Democracy

Let me repeat my update to this post at the top here:

Congratulations to all those who are happy and sleepy from staying up to watch Congressional returns.

I actually hope that our election holds another lesson for those who are watching overseas. You won't see tanks moving through our capital to keep the president's party in control. You won't see waves of refugees fleeing the new regime. You won't see a lot of things that we in America assume won't happen when we have elections.

The losers pack their bags and the winners move in. As anumber of people overseas rejoice in the president's defeat, I hope that in the end they notice that he did lose. And he did nothing to halt it outside of our laws. The president lost, he accepted it, and he moved on. This is one of the blessings of democracy and rule of law.

Elections aren't about putting a facade of legality on a continuing dictatorship. It is about the losers having the right and ability to win in the next election. This is what we have done. And we all assume that in two years there will be another free election. That's how it works. So rejoice in democracy even if you can't rejoice in the results.

My hope is that Iraqis in particular see this as what a normal democracy does and work to build this.

My bigger hope is that Iranians will be awe struck about how true democracy works and want it very much.

My grandest hope is that our expectations become the expectations of many more people in the Middle East.