The power of the intangible

Washington D.C.’s metro system is aloof and self-contained, an efficient system of tunnels that connect the district and its outlying areas. In the summer, no one goes above ground unless they have to, the cavernous spaces of the capitol’s transportation system offering refuge from the heat.

However, on the Sunday evening after the Concert at the Lincoln Memorial, where thousands massed to watch renowned artists usher in the President-elect, the D.C. metro offered shelter from a rare cold snap. Revelers packed both sides of the escalators, thwarting the headlong rush of D.C. residents down its left hand side.

Once inside, snatches of conversation proved that talk of the Inaugural took primacy over weather as a conversation starter.

Anna Siegel, a Pitt junior who traveled to the Inaugural, noted that this was not unusual in D.C.

“Everyone talks politics, all the time—it’s not impolite to open a conversation that way.” But this weekend, people of all ages, races, and states asked their neighbors what brought them to D.C., excitement overcoming the usual reticence of city dwellers.
Among the regular commuters checking their Blackberries on the train, two students from University of California Davis, Chris Remy and Mike Hower, struck up a conversation.

Draped carelessly over a seat nearest the door, their limbs and personal effects arranged like a Chagall painting, Remy and Hower had both interned on Capitol Hill this past summer. They flew in for the weekend to visit friends and to partake in the Inaugural hoopla.

“I said in July that if Barack Obama won the election I would come to the Inauguration,” Hower said, “so here I am.” He shrugged. “It’s crazy how it all worked out—especially having worked here for the summer and then gone home to Davis.” I asked why the transition had been a shock.

“D.C. is a traditionally liberal place,” Hower said. “And although people think the West Coast is really liberal, the interior of California is incredibly conservative.”

Remy nodded.

“I canvassed for Obama in California and then in Nevada. They had staffers living in a hotel on the Las Vegas strip for a week, just so we could create a body of student voters,” he said. “I’m so glad we got Obama elected.”

Remy’s sentence struck me: he wasn’t glad that Obama got elected; he was glad because we got Obama elected. The sentence structure was inclusive: the young voters, the next generation of political decision-makers had finally done what the pundits lamented we would never do; we voted. In large numbers. Our involvement, inspired by President Obama’s belief in possibility, had given him the opportunity to realize his platform.

The train rocketed down the blue line, away from the city. Hower dissected the tone of Obama’s concert address in which he cautioned its attendants, and its viewers on HBO, that the road before us would not be an easy one. Hower was unperturbed by the goals Obama has set for the country and his administration.

“Whether or not he changes anything practical, whether he balances the budget or whatever, that’s not the point. For the first time in a long time we have a leader who inspires us, someone that we can believe in. That’s the most important thing.

Without confidence in our ability to make changes in our country, we can’t address the problems, and that’s what Obama has done, helped to restore our confidence. ”

Margaret Krauss