A month after the election, I continue to sort through a variety of conflicting thoughts and emotions.
I’m still not sure how Sen. John Kerry didn’t win. I’m still not certain he didn’t win Ohio.
We consider America the world’s model democracy, and yet we Americans put up with a ton of Election Day crap — voter disinformation and intimidation, particularly of minorities; electronic voting machines that can’t produce a paper trail, manufactured and programmed by partisan corporations; monkey business at local boards of election, including shady lockdowns during the ballot counting; and officials overseeing the entire business with obvious conflicts of interest.
One of the planet’s youngest democracies, Ukraine, has decided to not put up with the crap anymore. And the Bush administration has publicly backed the Ukrainian people’s revolt against a seemingly corrupt and broken election system.
Back home, however, Bush and his enablers continue to insist that all is well here, even as they benefit from a seemingly corrupt and broken election system. We don’t take to the streets to demand better, as they’ve done in Kiev; we accept our lot in life with a shrug.
Where’s the outrage, I often wonder. But searching for it usually proves to be as fruitless and meaningless as O.J. looking for the real killer.
The Powers That Be have always been good at diffusing public outrage by turning it inward — unless public outrage aids their particular cause or bank account. During this year’s election cycle, outrage was redefined and repositioned as moral indignation and turned inward, setting ordinary folks against ordinary folks over religious beliefs.
Many of us thought the Kerry-Bush race would turn on a poor economy, an arrogant foreign policy, a quagmire in Iraq, a lack of concern over corporate scandals and a deteriorating health care system, among other issues. Others thought the race was about choosing a moral direction for the country and beating back negative encroachments into their orderly way of life.
The media defined the split as blue states vs. red states, and much of the discussion after the election has been about how different the two factions are. My immediate reaction was like a lot of you, feeling concerned and confused about how out of touch I seem to be with the red staters who carried the day (see “Red State Blues,” issue of Nov. 10-16).
The more I think about it and talk with people, though, I’m not sure we have our eyes on the right ball.
The country’s 51-49 split is about as close as it can possibly be, and that makes two really tight presidential elections in a row. Bush certainly got the most votes ever in a presidential race, but Kerry got the second most ever. More people voted against Bush this year than against any other winning candidate in U.S. history, and Bush in 2000 is in second place in that dubious category.
News networks constantly remind us that “moral values” was the top response voters gave to exit pollers about what drove their decision this year. (It’s funny how exit polls were universally slammed as worthless for misreading the Bush-Kerry race yet aren’t doubted on the morals question.)
Something like 26 percent of voters said morality issues were their No. 1 concern in the voting booth — meaning that three quarters of us had different concerns. Yet those of us in the non-morals crowd have been made to feel like we’re totally out of the loop.
Here’s the real deal I’m coming around to: We red staters and blue staters aren’t that far apart. Even on the most contentious issues.
Abortion? Reasonable pro-lifers understand that there are times a fetus should be aborted, such as saving the mother’s life. Reasonable pro-choicers understand that abortion shouldn’t be allowed at certain times, such as late in the pregnancy term.
That obviously leaves a huge chasm to cross to meet at some middle-ground policy, but it’s a start. And it destroys the false black/white, yes/no position that Bush and right-wing extremists would have you believe defines the abortion debate.
Guns? Reasonable gun control advocates understand that Americans have a Constitutional right to own guns. Reasonable NRA supporters understand that guns don’t belong in every person’s hands under every possible circumstance.
Gay marriage? Reasonable conservatives understand that all Americans deserve equal protection and equal treatment under the law. Reasonable gay rights advocates understand that marriage laws have been refined over time and that the times have dictated where the legal lines are drawn.
Living in a modern, complex, multicultural society like the United States means reasonable people compromise with each other. They find common ground and make reasonable decisions based on the best information available.
That’s the essence of democracy: You debate, you discuss and then you take a vote. Someone wins, someone loses and you move on.
Some winners, even the 51-49 ones, think they’re entitled to the whole enchilada. They pander to the 51 percent and agree to work with the losers as long as the losers come around to their point of view.
Other winners, who become true leaders, understand that they govern everyone, including the 49 percent who didn’t vote for them. They understand we’re all Americans who aren’t that different from each other.
It’s in the best interests of politicians and the media, among others, that Americans are cast as a deeply divided people waging war over intractable and unsolvable issues. Politicians and the media, of course, then cast themselves as the saviors who can bridge the gap and heal the nation — which they somehow never actually get around to doing.
Reasonable people far outnumber the extremists and the political blood-suckers in this country. It’s about time we start realizing our neighbor isn’t our enemy.
This article appears in Dec 8-14, 2004.