I’ve been holding back on posting to give a little perspective on it, think about what I want to say. There’s not really a question of what needs to be done, but I will be moping a bit.
By the slimmest of margins, and it looks like, because of a completely irrelevant bigotry, we have validated the administration’s actions abroad, and committed ourselves to a set of foreign, economic, civil rights and environmental policies that will probably take a lifetime to undo.
It’s almost enough to make you throw your hands up. The triumph of newspeak, of fantasy over objective reality. But on the other hand, to realize that if an aging populous of bigots with an agenda of hate and fear is the best that they can come up with, perhaps there’s hope in opposition. And that even if there isn’t any hope, against such an agenda, opposition is a moral obligation.
Anyway, instead, here’s some links:
- Kerry concedes. – Xeni
“Get over it,” he said, “The way you feel now is exactly how I felt when Nixon won a second term — crushed. I just couldn’t believe America was that stupid. But remember what happened to Nixon that term.”
“Change comes from discontent,” he said. “And right now, there’s a lot of discontent.”
- Rafe comments
I’m sure there will be tons of recrimination and analysis that explain exactly why Bush has won, but one number stands out to me as I think about Bush’s win, and that’s the number of people who voted. The Democrats were predicting upwards of 118 million voters. The Republicans were predicting 104 to 108 million. It’s closer to the number that the Republicans projected. In other words, the Democrats were undone by the same thing that everybody hoping for significant change is undone by, the false hope that people who don’t normally vote would rise up and make their voices heard. It never seems to work that way, does it?
- Clusterfuck Nation: Election Results – Jim Kunstler
We couldn’t form a plausible opposition to the those who act as if the future doesn’t exist.
- Greg Knauss on the Political Divide
Our culture has been swept along in a tide of emotionally-resonant, steadfastly anti-rational entertainment, and politics is at the head of the wave. The course of our country, the future of our people, is being determined by lizard-brain responses to images designed to trigger sub-rational responses.
- George Bush’s America
Reading the various commentary and chatting with a few people I’ve come
to a couple of realizations which I think we all need to come to terms
with. First, as Eric Alterman puts it, there are more of “them” than “us” right now.
The people who voted George Bush and the Republicans into office this
year didn’t do so because they were conned by a right wing asshole
posing as a compassionate centrist. They did so precisely because he is
a right wing asshole - Election Countdown 2004 . Election’s Over. Go Home
The early spin declares that the secret to Bush’s success was moral issues. A whopping 22 percent of voters called “Moral Values” their single most important issue, beating the economy, terrorism and Iraq; and of those, 80 percent voted for Bush. Yes, Evangelical Christians seemed to be the driving force yesterday, and they were driven, some say, by Bush’s stance on gay marriage and abortion.
See also this thread: 21. “Moral Values”?
- Anyone Know How to Make a Noose? James Wolcott
The election was a victory for George Bush and Rovianism, a victory for Grover Norquist. It was also a victory for Osama Bin Laden. I don’t believe for a moment Bin Laden was trying to sway voters to Kerry with his taped address. This was the outcome he wanted, a gift from us to him: an unapologetic Christian Crusader in the White House whose reelection giving lie to the notion that Abu Ghraib was an aberration and that the deaths of thousands of Iraqi civilians weigh upon America’s conscience. This morning America could not look more like a grinning aggressor to the Arab world, an aggressor with fresh marching orders.
Also, yesterday morning:
I am preparing myself for either outcome today. Should Kerry
win, I will post an important statement called “A Time for Healing,” or
something equally noble-sounding. Should Bush win, I shall post a
statement of philosophical resignation tentatively titled “Good, Go
Ahead, America, Choke on Your Own Vomit, You Deserve to Die.” The
latter will probably require a little more tweaking. - MORE ON THE GOP BASE – Noam Scheiber
Per my piece from this morning and my previous post, here’s an extremely telling piece of exit polling data from yesterday: Not only did Kerry win by an 86-13 margin among self-described liberals, he also won by a 55-45 margin among self-described moderates. So how’d Bush pull it off? He won 84-15 among self-described conservatives, and, more importantly, he made sure conservatives comprised a much bigger chunk of the electorate than they did in 2000. (Conservatives comprised about 34 percent of the electorate yesterday, versus 29 percent in 2000–a huge shift, raw numbers-wise.) Anyone anticipating a conciliatory second Bush term should stop and consider how much Bush owes his base.
- A MANDATE FOR CULTURE WAR – Andrew Sullivan
That’s Bill Bennett’s conclusion. He won’t be the only one. What we’re seeing, I think, is a huge fundamentalist Christian revival in this country, a religious movement that is now explicitly political as well. It is unsurprising, of course, given the uncertainty of today’s world, the devastating attacks on our country, and the emergence of so many more liberal cultures in urban America. And it is completely legitimate in this country for such views to be represented in public policy, however much I disagree with them. But the intensity of the passion, and the inherently totalist nature of religiously motivated politics means deep social conflict if we are not careful.
SLOW DOWN THERE…. – Amy Sullivan thinks this is hooey
- Stand and Fight
In the end, this election is about what kind of people we are, what kind of country we’ll be. Half of the electorate dissents from Bushism. The election still represents an expression of the strength of opposition to the radical and reckless course Bush has followed, despite the ugly campaign.
- Well, what to say?
I’ve referred to this in the past, and hopefully will have a chance to return to it, but here’s the essence of the matter, as I see it. Before today, the course that America had charted in the world over the last three years could be seen as the result of a traumatic event (9/11) and the choice of a president who was actually put in office by a minority of the electorate. This was a referendum on what’s happened in the last three years. And it’s been validated.
- BEFORE THE BLOODLETTING….
I sure hope all the liberal energy that came together this year doesn’t dissipate. After all, the real problem has never been George Bush, the problem has been that a bare majority of Americans agree with George Bush. That’s not an academic distinction, either: just as movement conservatives built up their machine in the ashes of Barry Goldwater’s loss in 1964, liberals need to continue building a long-term machine dedicated to changing popular opinion. And it’s hardly a herculean task: a switch of only 3 or 4 points in public opinion is a virtual landslide, and if we can pull it off it means that guys like George Bush can’t get elected anymore, even if they are the kind of people you’d like to have a beer with. It can be done.
- Bush Unbound – Matt Welch
Worse, I predicted 17 months ago that pushing for a constitutional amendment against gay marriage would specifically backfire on the Republicans, and cost them the White House. On the contrary, Bush bumped his popular vote percentage to a Clinton-topping 51 percent, Republicans increased their lead in both the House and Senate, and all 11 gay marriage-banning initiatives were headed for passage as the votes got counted in the wee hours this morning. Unsurprisingly, and certainly not for the last time, my finger is nowhere near the national pulse.