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Bush wins by one and a half million votes
Nov. 3rd, 2004 04:47 pmThe first thing to be said is that, given the degree of hatred among the losing party - easily gauged in the entries of my fellow LJ-ers - there is certain to be at least one major attempt on President Bush's life in the next four years. America is a country stuffed with guns - not least thanks to the efforts of this president. If he is killed by one of the automatic weapons his inaction has let back on the market, there will be a grim element of retribution.
As I said a month ago, this election was a choice not only between evils, but between absolute evils: the corrupt aristocracy of the Bush camp against the hypocrisy and blasphemy of the Kerry lot. Neither victory would have done America good, and in fact the country can now look forward to four more years of disastrously spendthrift, socially unjust, starry-eyed incompetence. The Patriot Act will be slowly whittled down by court challenges, since Bush neither can not really wants to destroy the power of the legal estate in American society (no politician will ever do that; too many of them are qualified lawyers themselves). Some others of the worst displays of ignorant arrogance on the part of this bunch of insular gits will probably suffer the same fate. But day-to-day mismanagement of the economy will continue, and lead to a real decline of American power in the world. Commitment to Iraq is likely to last for at least another couple of years (not that it would have been different if Kerry had won) and paralyze the American ability to effectively intervene elsewhere if a major crisis takes place. Some lunatics speak of invading Syria or - even madder - Iran; the truth is that if a war against Iran ever takes place, the Americans are certain to lose.
A positive and desirable outcome of this election may well be the final collapse of NATO and the rise of Europe as an independent world power. This is something for which I have been itching for twenty-five years. The relationship between a richer and more stable Europe, potentially a greater power, and a smaller, less prosperous, and less stable United States, has been a distorting and diseased feature of the world scene ever since the sixties. European political leadership has effectively taken refuge in domestic affairs under the protection of American military power, while the US overextended themselves offering military cover to countries that were more than able to afford their own. This has forced upon America a role of permanent world garrison that is quite outside its traditions and that has done a lot to poison its political life; while the rich and comfortable states of Western Europe made no effort to take a place in world affairs commensurate with their immense collective wealth and the multifariousness of their world interests. This has to change. The spendthrift policies of the Bush administration and the enduring weakness of American economy this will cause will weaken America to the point where it will have to make grim strategic choices.
Another outcome which I regard as positive and desirable, though nobody on my f-list will agree with me, is the resurrection of the Christian voice in America. Of the millions of new voters who rushed to the polls in this election, a large majority were evidently Christian; and this shows that, until this election, many ordinary Christians did not bother to vote in America because they felt excluded from the political process. In the 1999 elections, where about one American in two voted, Bush lost the popular vote by 150,000 units; in the 2003, where the proportion rose to more than three in five, he won by ten times that margin. Nothing could show more clearly that the vast majority of new electors were his supporters. And the kind of this support was clearly shown by the fact that the Republican candidates to House and Senate won more than the President, and that the anti-gay marriage propositions won by a larger margin than either. If this election were taken for what it really means, it should be understood as a decisive rejection of all the welter of loosely-connected heresies to which Americans misattribute the glorious name of Liberalism.
It will not, because the Christian vote has been hijacked by a party whose chief interest is not in morality or religion at all, or rather handed out free to them by their opponents. The Republicans will do the least they can against abortion, a few ineffective gestures to appease their electoral base, and will then turn with relief to the much more congenial task of destroying public finance. It is a damned shame. Christians voted Bush because they perceived that Kerry was against any values that could properly be understood as Christian; that is the simple fact. And I will add that Kerry would probably not have lost so many especially Catholic votes if he had not insisted on taking Holy Communion in public. No Catholic minds an agnostic acting like an agnostic; but we all mind disrespect to the Church and to the Host. Look, think of it what you like: think of it as an outrageous piece of superstition; think of it as an error to be extirpated; but, even if you hate it, try and understand what sort of thing we are. To us, the Eucharist is the most serious thing in the world, with no exception. It is the literal presence of God in the world. And you may think what you like about this belief, so long as you are clear on it that it is our belief, and that we take it seriously. Kerry should never have abused it. We would not have minded an agnostic taking agnostic positions, but we have to be revolted by the thought of the most obstinate supporter of abortion in the Senate presenting himself at the altar rails. The image of Candidate Kerry approaching the Body of God for electoral purposes may well have lost him the election: there is no telling how many hundreds of thousands of devout Catholics turned away from that picture in disgust.
As I said a month ago, this election was a choice not only between evils, but between absolute evils: the corrupt aristocracy of the Bush camp against the hypocrisy and blasphemy of the Kerry lot. Neither victory would have done America good, and in fact the country can now look forward to four more years of disastrously spendthrift, socially unjust, starry-eyed incompetence. The Patriot Act will be slowly whittled down by court challenges, since Bush neither can not really wants to destroy the power of the legal estate in American society (no politician will ever do that; too many of them are qualified lawyers themselves). Some others of the worst displays of ignorant arrogance on the part of this bunch of insular gits will probably suffer the same fate. But day-to-day mismanagement of the economy will continue, and lead to a real decline of American power in the world. Commitment to Iraq is likely to last for at least another couple of years (not that it would have been different if Kerry had won) and paralyze the American ability to effectively intervene elsewhere if a major crisis takes place. Some lunatics speak of invading Syria or - even madder - Iran; the truth is that if a war against Iran ever takes place, the Americans are certain to lose.
A positive and desirable outcome of this election may well be the final collapse of NATO and the rise of Europe as an independent world power. This is something for which I have been itching for twenty-five years. The relationship between a richer and more stable Europe, potentially a greater power, and a smaller, less prosperous, and less stable United States, has been a distorting and diseased feature of the world scene ever since the sixties. European political leadership has effectively taken refuge in domestic affairs under the protection of American military power, while the US overextended themselves offering military cover to countries that were more than able to afford their own. This has forced upon America a role of permanent world garrison that is quite outside its traditions and that has done a lot to poison its political life; while the rich and comfortable states of Western Europe made no effort to take a place in world affairs commensurate with their immense collective wealth and the multifariousness of their world interests. This has to change. The spendthrift policies of the Bush administration and the enduring weakness of American economy this will cause will weaken America to the point where it will have to make grim strategic choices.
Another outcome which I regard as positive and desirable, though nobody on my f-list will agree with me, is the resurrection of the Christian voice in America. Of the millions of new voters who rushed to the polls in this election, a large majority were evidently Christian; and this shows that, until this election, many ordinary Christians did not bother to vote in America because they felt excluded from the political process. In the 1999 elections, where about one American in two voted, Bush lost the popular vote by 150,000 units; in the 2003, where the proportion rose to more than three in five, he won by ten times that margin. Nothing could show more clearly that the vast majority of new electors were his supporters. And the kind of this support was clearly shown by the fact that the Republican candidates to House and Senate won more than the President, and that the anti-gay marriage propositions won by a larger margin than either. If this election were taken for what it really means, it should be understood as a decisive rejection of all the welter of loosely-connected heresies to which Americans misattribute the glorious name of Liberalism.
It will not, because the Christian vote has been hijacked by a party whose chief interest is not in morality or religion at all, or rather handed out free to them by their opponents. The Republicans will do the least they can against abortion, a few ineffective gestures to appease their electoral base, and will then turn with relief to the much more congenial task of destroying public finance. It is a damned shame. Christians voted Bush because they perceived that Kerry was against any values that could properly be understood as Christian; that is the simple fact. And I will add that Kerry would probably not have lost so many especially Catholic votes if he had not insisted on taking Holy Communion in public. No Catholic minds an agnostic acting like an agnostic; but we all mind disrespect to the Church and to the Host. Look, think of it what you like: think of it as an outrageous piece of superstition; think of it as an error to be extirpated; but, even if you hate it, try and understand what sort of thing we are. To us, the Eucharist is the most serious thing in the world, with no exception. It is the literal presence of God in the world. And you may think what you like about this belief, so long as you are clear on it that it is our belief, and that we take it seriously. Kerry should never have abused it. We would not have minded an agnostic taking agnostic positions, but we have to be revolted by the thought of the most obstinate supporter of abortion in the Senate presenting himself at the altar rails. The image of Candidate Kerry approaching the Body of God for electoral purposes may well have lost him the election: there is no telling how many hundreds of thousands of devout Catholics turned away from that picture in disgust.
