A lot of my friends have written things in response to their feelings about the election and they all reflect the same feeling of loss, of frustration, of trepidation, but additionally, I can’t think of a time when people have come, independently, to the same conclusions. Maybe there’s something positive in that, I don’t know. The interesting thing, is that people have the same feelings and thoughts about the elections, the issues in it, the reasons people voted a certain way, or didn’t and there’s been so little communication between people. I feel like my voice has been stolen and that any time I try to talk through my feelings about American politics, it comes out muddled and confused. Hopefully the words of my friends might articulate some of the things that I can’t.<\/p>\n
My friend Jason writes in e-mail:<\/p>\n
So it is over. I just watched Kerry concede and Bush declare victory.
\n There is a dull ache somewhere in my head and my stomach is cranky. I
\n feel the need to articulate something to somebody, and hope that makes
\n me feel better. Though, this could be read as my sour grapes. : )<\/p>\nA snippet from a CNN exit poll illustrates my concerns:
\n 22% called “moral values” the election’s most important issue (79% of
\n those were backing Bush), 20% believed it was the economy (80% of those
\n were backing Kerry), 19% pointed to terrorism (~79% of those were for
\n Bush), and 15% pointed to Iraq (75% of those for Kerry).<\/p>\nGranted, exit polls are not the most reliable, but I suspect that this
\n is a good snap shot of reality. Here’s my take…<\/p>\nAmerica is dangerously conservative and unabashedly uncritical–this is
\n the momentum of our electorate. They care more about the behavior of
\n same sex partners than they do about issues of import.
\n Republicans are good at conjuring red herrings that rely on fear and
\n moral issues–this is the momentum of our politics, and the media is
\n only fostering it. And the paucity of integrity and lack of
\n appreciation that people should come before profits afflicts politicians
\n on both sides.<\/p>\nNow Bush has a legitimate mandate, and this is scary. Before he ruled
\n by fiat of the Supreme Court and even then carried on with an air of
\n entitlement. What the Republicans do with this new vote of confidence
\n and the additional gains in Congress will be frightening. Expect bold
\n new appointments, sneaky politics, shady bills, and some Supreme Court
\n action.<\/p>\nEvery other liberal jokes of moving out of the country (me included of
\n course), some seem serious. But we need a liberal (hell, even a
\n moderate) America more than ever, so I hope this attitude doesn’t give
\n way to political lethargy. The U.S. needs people like us to advocate
\n for the marginalized and the environment, and keep a watchful eye on our
\n military and economic misadventures. We’ll bring the debate to them and
\n get a productive discourse going. Our history has seen shittier times,
\n but through action, often at the behest of true leaders, people beat it.
\n So as the country becomes increasingly divided and as domestic and
\n global politics heat up, I believe that Republicans will be held to
\n account. I think we’ll be instrumental in this.<\/p>\nThink of this way. Without representatives to stand in for us, we’ve
\n got to own our politics more personally. So while we are out of power
\n formally, we will pick up the slack in our regular lives. In some
\n respect this is cool and empowering. We are on the offensive, we will
\n find solidarity, and we’ll meet success sooner or later. <\/p><\/blockquote>\nMy friend Becca writes on her livejournal:<\/p>\n
resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.
\nresist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.
\nresist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.
\nresist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.
\nresist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.
\nresist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.
\nresist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.
\nresist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.
\nresist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.
\nresist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.
\nresist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.
\nresist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.
\nresist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.
\nresist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.resist.<\/p>\nplease. it’s going to take all of us<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
My friend Mike<\/a>, who I haven’t really talked to since we both lived in Edinburgh wrote in e-mail:<\/p>\n
i’m completely devastated by this election, and it is not going away. i wonder if you feel the same. the only explanations are ones which shatter beliefs about this country that i need to be true: that it is not filled with stupid, silly people and that it is not easily cowed by political reduction of macroscopic problems.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A lot of my friends have written things in response to their feelings about the election and they all reflect the same feeling of loss, of frustration, of trepidation, but additionally, I can’t think of a time when people have come, independently, to the same conclusions. Maybe there’s something positive in that, I don’t know.… Continue reading Post-election thoughts<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4wnIz-aM","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.terrorware.com\/geoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.terrorware.com\/geoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.terrorware.com\/geoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.terrorware.com\/geoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.terrorware.com\/geoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.terrorware.com\/geoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.terrorware.com\/geoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.terrorware.com\/geoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.terrorware.com\/geoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}