Random election thoughts

So the next four years are going to suck rather more than they might have. The difference will not be immediately obvious since on a number of the "big" issues, that is, the ones that grab our attention, the difference would have been very small. Specifically, Iraq plus Israel and the Palestinians.

There are other areas that are not "big" but which should be where again, the difference would have been small. Global climate change for one. Relations with the growing number of leftist administrations in Latin America for another. Cuba. Military spending.

No, the differences will arise more in the smaller - that is, less noticed - ways, the slow grinding machinery of government. Moves to make permanent the provisions of the TRAITOR Act that were supposed to sunset. Further cuts in the budgets for environmental enforcement. Reluctance to go to court to enforce civil rights laws. Secrecy. Increasing criminalization of dissent. All gradual, all slow, all under the radar.

What does it say about the electorate that they don't seem to care? That they seem to live in blissful unawareness of issues that affect them directly, affect their lives in measurable ways? I have seen voices saying the election proves the public is hopelessly reactionary, that people vote the way they do because it's actually exactly what they want, that we were dreaming to even think they might be persuaded to budge from Bush even the small shift it would take to get to Kerry, that it's all been and all will be a waste of time.

But the public is not evil, it's more that it's, well - how shall I say this - stupid. No, not stupid, that's not the right word. Lazy fits much better. Lazy, intellectually slothful, feckless, dullards when it comes to public life. I mentioned on October 23 that the Program on International Policy Attitudes did a survey of Bush and Kerry supporters and discovered, disturbingly I'd say, that on a range of issues Bush's supporters not only were wrong about his positions but thought he agreed with their stands when in fact he didn't. We are as a people astonishingly, embarrassingly, ignorant about our own affairs. Children in Europe know as much if not more about our politics as we do.

As a result, we are repeatedly, almost casually, manipulated into voting against our own best interests, indeed against our own beliefs. (I speculated on some causes in that earlier post, which I won't bother repeating here.)

I find that a frightening concept, especially as the depth of that ignorance appears to grow over time. More frightening, in fact, than the open extremist fanaticism of some of Shrub's supporters, more, even, than his own fanaticism, a fanaticism that has him convinced he has some kind of direct phone line to God: He told Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas last June that "God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did." (Another version has him saying God "inspired" him to act. A distinction without a difference, I'd say.)

And now we have to face that fear, the results of that frightening concept - or, I say again, a bigger fear than otherwise would have loomed (I refuse to say that with Kerry there would have been nothing to fear) - because that collection of dim-witted, spineless boobs known as the Dummycrats screwed up again. They and much of the rest of what passes for the left these days remain ridiculously clueless about how to deal with the onslaught of mindless reaction, impressive-sounding but vapid sloganeering, and hot-button pressing that makes up the political campaigns of the right.

They - no, make that we, the left as a whole, including those parts of the Democratic Party that still deserve the label (and yes, there are some) - persist, foolishly, stupidly, inanely, pointlessly, to play by the right wing's rules, to accept the right wing's definitions. (The hot topic these days is George Lakoff's theories about "framing," relating to the language used to express political positions. Of course, I've been going on about that, albeit in less academic terminology, for over 20 years, but who am I? A degree-less, institution-less nobody. No, I'm not frustrated or bitter. Not at all.)

The perfect example of that was John Kerry's oh-so-gracious concession speech with its oh-so-reasonable call for "healing." Just hours after John Edwards - who was pretty much a bust as a candidate, I'd say - was declaring the Democrats would demand that officials "count every vote!" John Kerry and his party caved. But this was no time for mild-mannered retreat, no time for high-minded platitudes. At the time Kerry folded, Bush's lead in Ohio was less than the total of provisional votes not yet counted. Yes, Kerry would have to get most of them. Yes, it was a long shot. No, it was not time to throw in the towel - not before you know. And if there was to be a concession speech, it should have rung with "No surrender! The fight goes on!" Instead it was a plea to George Bush to be gentle with us.

But perhaps we shouldn't be surprised, if only because for John Kerry to say "the fight goes on" he'd have to be able to say just what fight that is. And beyond "Anybody But Bush," which obviously was not enough for a sufficient number of people, I've no clue what that fight would be. So I'm not surprised. Distressed, angry, yes. Surprised, no. Because let's be blunt: John Kerry lost this election in the fall of 2002 when he voted in favor of the Iraqi war resolution. Oh, he offered all his explanations, his "nuances," but the bottom line is he voted for it - and he did so because, with his eyes on his plans to run for president, he was too much of a damned coward to cast what he feared would be an unpopular vote against a war that I think he didn't believe in. He eviscerated his political soul on the altar of expediency and never fully recovered. There is no reason to think a Kerry presidency, especially in the face of a hostile Congress populated with people who really are ready to go to the mat on every issue and whose idea of compromise is to graciously allow you to only have to go 95% of the way towards their position rather than 100%, would undo that damage.

So we're in for four more years of probably losing struggle, our efforts going just to keep present inadequacies from getting even worse.

Still, remember one thing: We will survive. We will survive the dark time. We survived the Palmer Raids, we survived McCarthy, we survived the witchhunts of the '60s, we will survive this. At some point, somehow, sometime, we will emerge from our coma, our consciences will reawaken, we will look around us with shock at the injustice, the poverty and racism, the death and devastation we have engendered, and we will declare "This is terrible! Why didn't someone tell us?"

But at that point, quite frankly, if I live to see it, I will be in no mood to forgive and forget. I will say "We did tell you. You just refused to listen. So look around: This is the result of your selfish indifference."