I voted for Bush but I am a social liberal, an economic and environmental moderate, and a strong believer in the separation of church and state. Based upon what I have been told by many on both sides of the Great Divide, I should be very concerned about what the 2004 election results say about our nation, a result to which I contributed with my vote.
But I am not worried about the social and moral state of the nation more than usual, and think voters are a lot smarter and more nuanced than many are giving them credit for: a vote for Bush was not necessarily a vote against social tolerance or any other broad-based agenda. In my case, I just thought it best to return Bush to office to (attempt to) finish what he began regarding the war on terror. I simply thought he was the best choice at this time under these circumstances: that's it - no broader agenda than that.
I didn't give the guy a "mandate," I gave him a vote based upon my own personal juggling and balancing of priorities, just like most of the rest of the nation that doesn't have a stereotypical "agenda" and set of litmus tests. And a lot of people vote Republican out of a perceived preference from their wallets, whether they admit it to pollsters or not.
And then there is the whole red and blue nonsense: a stark graphic that purports to reveal so much more than it actually reveals as to end up a net knowledge — or at least insight — loss. The red and blue depiction (see below) DOES reveal the political realities that derive from our winner-take-all electoral college system for the states in presidential elections, but otherwise it fails both on geographical and on social/moral levels because its surface is so glossily shallow it obscures equally or more important underlying truths and realities.
As to the moral issues, for once I agree entirely with Frank Rich, who as a political columnist I typically view as a fine theater critic:
- There's only one problem with the storyline proclaiming that the country swung to the right on cultural issues in 2004. Like so many other narratives that immediately calcify into our 24/7 media's conventional wisdom, it is fiction. Everything about the election results - and about American culture itself - confirms an inescapable reality: John Kerry's defeat notwithstanding, it's blue America, not red, that is inexorably winning the culture war, and by a landslide. Kerry voters who have been flagellating themselves since Election Day with a vengeance worthy of "The Passion of the Christ" should wake up and smell the Chardonnay.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Hal Pawluk
A vote for Bush means exactly what Bush says it means.
No amount of whining is going to change that.
Because his god tells him that's what a leader does.
2 - Eric Olsen
actually, a vote means what the voter says it means - that's why we have such things as polling. Voting is basically binary - the decisions that lead to it rarely are
3 - boomcrashbaby
Eric, I understand that a vote for Bush this election doesn't necessarily mean that the voter wants a return to medieval times, my fear though is that those who speak loudest on tv as well as paleo-cons here like Reporterette BELIEVE that it does. And Bush is spooning them late at night when Laura is asleep.
When I talk about all the discrimination and oppression I face, it's there, it's real and I do face it, but the majority of people are tolerant, even most Republicans out here. Of course all the Republicans we happen to know personally are lawyers so they know tolerance while at the same time being able to offend EVERYBODY.
It's the power this administration thinks it has, and the power the right wing thinks it's been given the go-ahead with, that scares me. I hope and I pray you are right, and I want nothing more than you to be able to say 'I told you so'.
on another note, this election has caused most people to quit talking about Iraq. Here's a bunch of pictures that you won't find in the mainstream media.
http://fallujapictures.blogspot.com/
4 - curt
boom -
just visited the fallujahpictures.blogspot...sort of a sobering view on the reality of the invasion and occupation, isn't it?
real citizens - men, women and children (sights you won't see on a florida college campus); and real american soldiers - those brave enough to actually enlist (and able to take orders)...
...killed or maimed.
5 - Jim Carruthers
I wonder, next year, how willing Eric will want to wear a "I voted for Bush" badge in public on the streets (hint, make sure to wear a cup). Not so much, I suspect when everything goes down the sewer.
6 - Natalie Davis
Yeah. Disappointed. Eric and Frank Rich's good points notwithstanding, there is a war brewing. Dubya insists he's going to spend his political capital and that means ugliness is on the way, whatever well-meaning people who voted for the terrorist-and-thief think.
7 - Eric Olsen
Boom, I hope I am right too, but that doesn't mean the election was not at least partially a (temporary I assume) rearguard action against tolerance and equality - I don't blame you for being concerned.
Re the pics: war sucks, does anyone not believe that war sucks, is in fact, hell? But if you're going to do it, you do it and you do it to win. This is reality.
8 - Eric Olsen
Nat, I appreciate being credited as well-meaning. I believe there are those who are trying to foment cultural conflict, but they will not succeed in anything but the shortest term. Just look at the demographics, the real political realities of red, blue and purple: the larger arrow will continue to move in a positive direction.
9 - Avedon
In my case, I just thought it best to return Bush to office to (attempt to) finish what he began regarding the war on terror.
The question I'm struggling with right now is just what it is he started. Is what's going on in Iraq a feature or a bug?
10 - Eric Olsen
I see Iraq as part of the war on terror, that mission must be completed while we continue to work with Afghanistan and continue to vigorously pursue al Qaeda throughout the globe. We have to deal with nukes in North Korea and prevent them in Iran - it's a perilous and difficult time.
11 - Natalie Davis
I hope you are correct about the larger arrow, Eric, but I am not as positive as you. In fact, I have lost whatever faith I had in 51 percent of those who voted. Bad stuff is coming -- or worse stuff, rather, considering things were intolerably bad as they were. Your guy, bought and paid for by the Religious Wrong, has political capital to spend, and he means to spend it. Good people with means ought to flee and flee fast.
12 - Natalie Davis
Oh -- and think about those who can't flee, those who are beaten down by the policies Bush votes, intentionally or not, supported, those who live every day without legal equality or economic justice, those who suffer because of the Bush gang. If you think a war isn't brewing, please think again. Some of us have had it. Things are going to get ugly.
13 - boomcrashbaby
shhhh.
14 - Hal Pawluk
There is hardly any need to pursue terrorists in Iraq - virtually all of them are home-grown and there for the taking.
The problem is all the other terrorists around the world, who rather than going to Iraq have spread far and wide, gaining new converts as they went because of hte carnage created in Iraq.
The problem has gone far beyond Al Qaeda (and the very few leaders captured).
15 - alethinos59
Eric... I like what you're trying to say here... We all know that the Republicans AND the Democrats are both bedding big business. Historical records show that Big Business doesn't really care if there is a Dem or Rep in the White House. Oh certain people scream about TAXES but Federal taxes are amazingly low and HAVE BEEN for nearly 30 years.
But the problem is that Bush and his ilk are riding a TIGER that they may very well not be able to dismount... Insanity once unleashed is damn hard to lure back. We have plenty of examples of this in the last 100 years...
16 - RJ
"Good people with means ought to flee and flee fast."
Go!
17 - RJ
"If you think a war isn't brewing, please think again. Some of us have had it. Things are going to get ugly."
Are you threatening violence?
I thought that was against your "religion"...
18 - andy marsh
RJ - don't worry, the left doesn't have any guns anyway!
19 - Mark Saleski
geezuz! don't you guys ever get tired of playing with these lame stereotypes?
i can play too:
no, the left doesn't have guns, we've got books.
duh.
20 - andy marsh
gonna throw 'em?
21 - Eric Olsen
Anyway, my main point is the "sides" don't exist nearly to the extent perceived, that there are a very large number of people - probably the plurality - who don't identify with the hardline agenda of either the right or the left, who pick and choose, who weigh priorities from election to election, and who may well go the other way next time around if they feel the pendulum is too far from the center.
22 - Mac Diva
. . .and that's why the most Right Wing regime since the Reagan years was just elected. Not. The people who voted for Bush voted for all the bad things that are going to happen under his very hard line regime. They can wiggle as much they want, but we should not let them off the hook.
23 - Eric Olsen
whatever you say Boss
24 - Hal Pawluk
If you had ever seen one, you'd know it would hurt to get hit by a book.
25 - andy marsh
HA HA!!! That was humor...I get it!!! I've seen 'em...we burn them all the time!!!