Another Post-Election Collection

People will be talking about this election for four more years, and maybe long after that, and while I won't be one of those people every day, it's still far too early to move completely on to other things. So first, this awesome map of the vote by county makes the country appear more divided than ever. Perhaps that's why some people are starting to talk less in terms of Red and Blue states and more in terms of a Purple Nation. Still, even though Kerry's support was concentrated in a few small geographic locations, that doesn't make it less significant. This is especially true when you consider that Kerry may actually have won—in a sort of hypothetical sense. Of course, he didn't win, but Greg Palast explains why the discarded and uncounted votes would very likely have put Kerry in the White House. Is this just the talk of sore losers? Perhaps, but we do know that at least one voting machine gave Bush nearly 4,000 votes that didn't exist, and if that happened, oh, about 40 times across Ohio (whether by accident or some other means), the margin of victory is suddenly gone. (A bit more on the evoting problems here and here.) Some Democratic congresspeeps are calling for an inquiry into evoting “irregularities.” With both the executive and legislative (and arguably the judicial) branches of gov't locked up by the Repubs, don't hold your breath on that investigation. The truth may want to be free, but for stuff like this, it's probably going to have to just keep wanting for at least four more years. And it's going to be a long four years; Republican gloating is so not pretty. Meanwhile, lots of people will be talking about how the vote broke down—who really voted for Bush? Sadly, it appears the working class has decided that trickle down economics and other economic policies destined to destroy the middle class are actually good for them. Maybe they appreciate the morbid spectacle, like some kind of sadistic circus act: Come one, come all! Watch as the gap between rich and poor gets wider! step right up folks, to see the gross inequality become even more appalling! I thought we'd all figured out that trickle down economics was just a nice way of describing how the rich piss on the poor, but I guess not. Is this What's the Matter with Kansas? Optimists are speculating that Bush might be more centrist in his first term as elected president/second term serving. Michael Hirsh makes a good point: It would seem difficult for Bush's second term to be more radical than the first, so moving more to the center may be his only option. But no, I don't think so. Bush and Rove etc. are good at what they do; every time you think they've gone as far as they can go, they go farther. I'd like to be optimistic, but we tried that in 2000 and it failed. I'd rather prepare for the worst. Bush's arrogance was on full display in his rare press conference as he admitted that he didn't have the support of the nation before this election, but said that now that he has “the will of the people behind him” he's going to start enforcing rules on the press. That's just the beginning, we can be sure. If you live in a blue state, get your Don't Blame Me t-shirts today. “Responsible clothing for the politically frustrated.” Yeah, but what about D.C.? You can also get a Blame Ohio t-shirt there, and elsewhere you're invited to say Sorry Everybody. All of that is great, but maybe we should start a site called “The Next Campaign Starts Today” because while it's nice to be sorry, it's better to work for positive change. This Ohio mother captures that pretty well:

So what am I going to tell my kids? I'm going to tell them that Bush won. I'm going to tell them that the electoral process worked. I'm also going to remind them that voting is only part of the process. The next part is to do everything we can as citizens and activists to reign in the havoc that Bush and his cronies are prepared to wreak, to find strong progressive candidates who will win the next elections, and to remind the world that here in Ohio, as in the rest of the country, there are lots of people -- half of us for sure, and probably more -- who want our country and our world to be different. We're here, we voted, and we're not going away.

In that vein, Kos says here's to hope, and don't mourn, organize. Cass Sunstein agrees, arguing that “healing” means surrender:

Critics of the Bush presidency do not need to heal our divisions but to insist on them. President Bush has presided over an extraordinarily divisive and polarizing administration. The suggestion that we should now “heal our divisions” is really a suggestion not for unity but for capitulation.

My sister agrees. Story: Someone came into her office and started moaning about how she hoped we could all put down our swords and come together as one nation. My sister called BS on that and said, “Americans don't need to put down their swords they need to pick them up so they don't get slaughtered by the Bush administration!” Yeah, my sister rocks. So as long as we're picking up the swords, Salon collected some “what to we do now?” thoughts from prominent pundit types, and I obviously agree w/what Arianna Huffington had a to say:

Already there are those in the party convinced that, in the interest of expediency, Democrats need to put forth more “centrist” candidate -- i.e., Republican-lite candidates -- who can make inroads in the all-red middle of the country. I'm sorry to pour salt on raw wounds, but isn't that what Tom Daschle did? He even ran ads showing himself hugging the president! But South Dakotans refused to embrace this lily-livered tactic. Because, ultimately, copycat candidates fail in the way “me-too” brands do. Unless the Democratic Party wants to become a permanent minority party, there is no alternative but to return to the idealism, boldness and generosity of spirit that marked the presidencies of FDR and JFK and the short-lived presidential campaign of Bobby Kennedy. Otherwise, the Republicans will continue their winning ways, convincing tens of millions of hardworking Americans to vote for them even as they cut their services and send their children off to die in an unjust war.

Camille Paglia offers some good advice, as well:

Progressives must do some serious soul-searching. Too often they are guilty of arrogance, insularity and sanctimony. They claim to speak for the common man but make few forays beyond their own affluent, upper-middle-class circles. There needs to be less preaching and more direct observation of social reality. America is evolving, and populism may be shifting to the Republican side.

Paul Waldman, editor of The Gadflyer, joins the chorus of those calling for energy and activism in the face of defeat:

So where do progressives go from here? First, they should spend the next four years fighting. If Kerry had won, there would be Republicans drafting articles of impeachment at this very moment, ready to fill in the blank of an imagined crime in January. As I did in the article I wrote for the launch of this magazine, I offer the movie quote that best describes today's Republican Party, from The Terminator: “It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity or remorse or fear. And it absolutely will not stop – ever – until you are dead.” There are a lot of very bad things George W. Bush is going to try to do over the next four years, but they can be stopped.

Of course, organizing and continuing the fight doesn't have to mean increasing division in the country. As Maureen Dowd suggests, “ W. doesn't see division as a danger. He sees it as a wingman.” Somewhere there must be a balance between fighting for what we believe is right, and completely alienating those who don't agree or don't understand. I don't think the balance needs to be that difficult to strike, but obviously we haven't reached it yet. Here's to trying.

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Miscellaneous other post-election hoo-haw: Why Americans Hate Democrats, a collection of opinions from prominent Democrats that I haven't really had time to digest yet. Still thinking about moving to Canada? Get in line. The last word on Bush's bulge? The SS says it was a bulletproof vest. Ok, thanks. But um, how, exactly, would you have compromised the president's security by admitting that a month ago? One of Newsweek's election post-mortems summarizes the whole Kerry campaign, from the moment party leaders annointed him as their nominee (long before a single primary vote was cast), to getting his ass handed to him by Howard Dean, to being “electable,” to being ultimately defeated. Wow, what a great story. Not. But it is consistent with the idea that Kerry just was never a very good candidate. Do people in red states have a lower average IQ than those in blue states? Probably not (the data in that table appear to be unreliable), but... Alabama vote shows some Old South sympathies. Yay. Ha.

Posted November 6, 2004 08:07 AM | election 2004