A 51% majority of the popular vote has elected George W. Bush President of the United States. In other forums, I had predicted a Kerry victory with 311 Electoral Votes and 52% of the popular vote.
Apparently, I was wrong. I was an optimist.
That’s all right; I’m man enough to admit it. I made a mistake. However, that mistake was not voting for John Kerry or the American ideals for which he stood. Nearly half the voters in this election were patriotic enough to do just that.
No, my mistake was underestimating the power of the “values” crowd to get out the vote. My mistake was forgetting that Robert A. Heinlein novel, Revolt in 2100, that I had read as a teenager (George W. Bush is Nehemiah Scudder.) My mistake was ignoring my 20th century European history lessons about what bigotry, ignorance, hatred, and blind devotion can accomplish with an economically depressed population. My mistake was not understanding, like Karl Rove and Osama bin Laden understand, that God is the ultimate motivator.
I always thought America was the land of the free and the home of the brave. One of my favorite quotes from the Founding Fathers was uttered by Benjamin Franklin, and is inscribed at that famous gift from the French, the Statue of Liberty. “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Apparently, I was wrong. A 51% majority of my compatriots believe that giving up liberty is worth a little safety. Three and a half million more voters believe it is right to support the crew that brought us terror alerts, Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, secret imprisonment, secret spying on citizens, secret energy policy meetings, and free speech zones. These are what you voted for – assaults on essential liberty!
I always thought America was a place that believed in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. A place where we believed that all men are created equal. A place where we champion the rights of oppressed minorities.
Apparently, I was wrong. Eleven out of eleven states went to the ultimate step of amending their constitutions to deny marriage rights to homosexuals. From a 17-to-3 margin in Mississippi to a 3-to-2 margin here in Oregon, marriage was rescued from an insurgence of gayness! How many of those 3.5 million more voters who voted for Bush were lured by the siren call of gay bashing? How ironic that record numbers of young voters lured to the polls by Eminem’s latest hit were offset by the record number of “values” voters who agree with the homophobia in his earlier hits?
Now the Religious Right Wing God’s Own Party is running the entire country with a mandate and no re-election fears. America has become a one-party state with three two-party provinces – the West Coast, the Great Lakes, and New England – that are just barely blue rather than red. They won’t let us secede either, because they survive by means of our tax dollars.
They have even larger majorities in the House and Senate; control over most Governorships, and soon an unassailable majority in the Supreme Court and Federal Courts. They even have their own nationwide TV and radio networks. They will make the token gesture of bipartisanship, the plea that we need to work to heal the wounds and bring this country together. However, what motivation will they have to move toward the center? They run it all now. They have a mandate, remember? Bipartisanship will mean “how many of you will join us in what we intend to do, anyway?”
Apparently, I was wrong to be optimistic about the wisdom of the American electorate. I really believed that the people would hold George W. Bush accountable for his failures and broken promises. My mistake was forgetting that Born Again™ Christians are not perfect, just forgiven. All mistakes are overlooked if one just accepts Jesus; profess the faith regardless of the deeds. The buck stops nowhere.
I’ve learned my lesson; I’m not optimistic anymore. I believe we’re not in store for four more years of the same. I think we’re looking at four more years of much worse. I see nothing to stop them from achieving their agenda. I’m prepared to see the wall between church and state come tumbling down, prayer in public schools, and tax-supported old-time religion. I’m prepared for the criminalization of abortion, dissent, and private sexual acts. I foresee more job losses, less health insurance, further gifts for the wealthy, thousands more deaths, two more wars, all-out assault on state medical marijuana, a military draft, privatization of social security, more discrimination against gays, increased censorship, further consolidation of media, and rising poverty rates. Worst of all, I see the foundation being set up of a theocracy for generations to come, bent on fulfilling a global prophecy for an end-of-the-world conflict between Christianity and Islam.
There’s another quote at the Statue of Liberty from the liberal Franklin Roosevelt: “Liberty is the air America breathes . . . In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential freedoms . . . freedom of speech and expression . . . freedom of worship . . . freedom from want . . . freedom from fear.”
That is all that I want. Freedom from fear and want. Fifty-one percent of the voters think George W. Bush is leading us and the world in that direction. I and 49% of the American voters and a huge majority of the world beg to differ. Please, please let me be wrong again. Let me be proud of America again. Let America stand for peace, cooperation, liberty, humility, tolerance, and charity again, both at home and in the world.
“Our defense is in the spirit which prized liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism at your own doors.” ABRAHAM LINCOLN
