They lied. They said it would be decided by Wednesday morning when we woke up, that the sun would shine with illuminating clarity, and the moral dustiness and intellectual rustiness of the last three years would disappear. We would know who we were as a people again, breathe a deep sigh of relief, and graciously reclaim our rightful place in the march of history.
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Instead, it was a gray morning. Instead, we awoke to a briefly undecided election and found not much insight into what had happened to us–or more important, within us.
They said we had voted with passion, as never before–and yet nobody could tell me what that passion was all about. (Could we really be as bitterly divided as we are because of single issues such as abortion, stem-cell research and prescription drugs?) They noted admiringly how we stood in line for hours to exercise the politically sacred right to vote–but further noted that many of us stood there in order to get even with the other side.
So, where are we? Heck, I don’t even know who “they” are–and I’m supposed to be one of them!
All right, then, let’s start with the “they.” Here we should be talking about the analysts of our society–journalists, think-tankers and political junkies, but also about every American with a good head on his shoulders. But we should also examine the larger collective “mind” of the American people–that coming together of principles, policies and impressions that has, in our best, historic moments, made us a united and interwoven people.
But other factors played parts in the outcome of this election. Some of our best analysts say the Democrats lost exactly the kinds of people who used to make up the party–the working men and women of America, the farmers, the waitresses, the truck drivers–because of an elitist liberal “Eastern” image that doesn’t relate to Middle America. They have a point.
But when those same Middle Americans say they voted for President Bush because of his “moral” stands, I have to wonder where I forgot to get off. Last week, an international team of team of scientists in Iraq, for instance, came up with the figure of 100,000 more Iraqis, many of them women and children, killed by America. Most of those casualties resulted from our “pure” bombing, of which we self-righteously announce that “we do everything possible to avoid collateral damage.” Are Americans bothering to read about this in the papers?
Others have stressed that Bush came out ahead so quickly because he was, and is, perceived as a “strong leader.” Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani focused on this the morning after the election, noting that “W” won on this perception even after, by most judgments, he had lost the debates. Once again, I have to wonder. Anyone who looks at the news from Iraq these days with even the slightest fairness of mind can come to only one horrible conclusion: This war, misbegotten in its president’s womb from the start, is rapidly being lost.
For even while insisting that we are winning, our generals have said on the record such words as these: “We’re trying to work through all the unforeseen results of an insurgency that becomes more robust. … I don’t think it’s too late to succeed, but it’s not going to be easy. … We have a very small window of opportunity to make this work.”
And those famous elections in January in Iraq, which are supposed to solve everything? Most people will be too terrified to vote in the horrific atmosphere in Iraq–even today, they take their lives in their hands every time they dare to leave their homes. Further, the man who is supposed to lead Iraq, the American-chosen Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, has no roots in the society: no political party, no religious base, no organizations based on any ideology that are faithful to him. He’s a capable man–but what difference does that make in a maniac asylum?
And yet, Americans seem to have been convinced in this election that Bush is a “strong leader.” He makes them “more secure.” He is “tough on terrorism,” and he’s the leader to “scare the world.” Well, he sure scares me.
Instead, I think he answers a certain craving people have at insecure moments in their history–the dangerous need for a demagogic leader to cling to who will promise you security but, too often, at the price of your soul.
Before the election, I thought columnist Philip Stephens of the Financial Times posed the questions of my “morning after” reverie most cogently: “One way or the other,” he wrote in the week before the elections, “next Tuesday’s poll will answer the most compelling question of our times: What sort of country does America want to be? Does the country now belong to the cultural conservatives who shape Mr. Bush’s domestic agenda and to the `might-is-right’ adventurers who set his administration’s foreign policy? Or can Kerry restore the Democratic ideals of opportunity and community at home and cooperative leadership abroad as the values that best describe America to itself and to the rest of the world?”
We got only part of the answer to those central questions Wednesday morning. It promises to be a long four years.
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E-mail: gigi(underscore)[email protected] Georgie Anne Geyer