I think you're both right, in a way. 2008 confirmed that we are a country of adult-adolescents easily titillated by a soaring "black preacher in the pulpit" delivery of bumper sticker rhetoric.
But there was always the chance that during the first 4 years, people would look back on 2008 sort of like your adult self looks back on some of the embarrassing music you thought was cool when you were 13. Well, in 2012 they didn't have the excuse that they were voting for something new, no they doubled down on stupid and put a big exclamation point on 2008.
For me, 11/6/2012 was when I finally accepted that the door had shut on any sort of political correction.