While Barack Obama?s victory should certainly be a time for celebration among progressives, we also need to realize the obstacles our 44th president will face. The era we came to know during the past generation has come to a crashing halt. Those decades, marked by vast social inequality, truly were a ?Second Gilded Age,? and Democratic domination alone will not be enough to repair the damage.

The First Gilded Age was also a period largely dominated by Republicans, and while the party presided over industrialization on a massive scale, it also saw inequality skyrocket. Socialist answers to the problem were long seen as too radical, and the American South dominated the Democratic Party.

That all changed with the onset of the Great Depression. During that period of economic crisis, Democrats dominated the American political system. Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president three times, though encountering fierce opposition from conservatives.

The Second Gilded Age has seen political roles somewhat reversed from its counterpart at the turn of the 20th century, though Democrats may once again see themselves hold the power. The Republican Party remains the party of economic growth, usually unsustainable and attained at the expense of social justice.

Conservatives are now supported by southern states that were once Democratic strongholds. The Democrats in turn have support in former Republican regions such as the Northeast.

Yet there is an important difference between the pre-Depression years and the turn of the 21st century: military expenditures. The end of the First Gilded Age was characterized by an inward focus and a strict policy of isolationism, a ?return to normalcy,? in the words of President Warren G. Harding during the 1920 election.

In contrast, out-of-control defense spending has marked the Second Gilded Age. That spending is, in fact, at its largest since World War II. Though never coming close to reproducing our casualties from that conflict, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are two of the most expensive in history. The costs are disproportionate to the death toll.

Barack Obama will be the President of the United States starting in January. Though only time can tell, it is probably a safe bet that conservatives and Republicans will once again be political minorities for years to come.