THE 2004 ELECTION

I received the following email from a friend of a friend on the day after the election:

10:00pm, Nov. 2nd, 2004
I'm getting a sinking feeling but I am nothing if not an optimist with a terrific sense of humor. Part of me wants to run off a few choice bumper stickers, such as, "Red States Suck", or "Liberal hell, I hate Republicans". Can this Fun Puppy bear another four years of this Country mired in muck, or mucked in mire? Forever I've had this feeling of us/we versus they/them. And they are again going to be in charge of us. Yuck! Truly half this country, we now know, is made up of them, the United States of Enron. So where is the silver lining? I suppose it comes from the State where I live. California, I am happy to announce, is BLUE. I don't have to think that my neighbors have no sense. If I lived in a red state right now, seriously, I would feel like a Jew living in the early stages of the Third Reich. Maybe I'll invest in Brown Shirts. We have just given Hitler the Chancellery and it's time to head for Switzerland. But I don't have to. I live in a Blue State where the Republican Governor votes against his party on certain issues and may actually vote his conscience. Of course, my governor is an Austrian muscleman who made his way by becoming an action hero of make believe cinema. How Californian is that? So what I might do instead of moving to Switzerland, is, stop reading so much about current events, shit who needs the forthcoming grief that's bound to come in our future. I've had enough of that already. Maybe the inhabitants of the Red States know something already. That ignorance IS bliss. Shit, why did we have to be so well educated? Why wasn't I a child left behind?

It’s been more than a week since the 2004 election, and the chattering classes continue to parse the results. The left-wing faction that controls the Democratic Party is now engaged in explaining to itself and its followers what went wrong, and it is doing so, in public, in all the usual media venues. It is a process that amazes me. In some ways, it’s every bit as interesting as the election itself, which fascinated me and which was practically supernatural in many respects.

What’s different now is that the losers are telling us, to a large extent, what they really believe. The outrageous charges and insults that are part of every political campaign, the electioneering blather---that’s gone now. No one ever believed there was a secret plan to reinstitute the draft or cut social security benefits or stop black people from voting, so you are not hearing those claims now. Instead, on Air America and in the New York Times and on CNN and CBS and MSNBC and in the Washington Post, we have had the movers and shakers of the Democratic Party telling us what they think and what their world looks like.

And here is what they are saying:

1) Those who are opposed to same-sex marriage are less tolerant toward gay people.

2) The notion that we are fighting to bring freedom to the Iraqi people is so corny and unsophisticated that anybody who believes it is a rube.

3) The Democrats were not rejected by the voters. Either they “didn’t get the message out” (i.e., let’s all blame Kerry), or Bush voters were too stupid or fearful to understand their own best interest.

4) The purpose of Bush’s program of tax cuts was to ensure the richest Americans pay less and the poorest Americans pay more.

5) Right-wingers control the news media.

6) The only reason anyone would worry about embryonic stem-cell research is because the Pope or Jerry Falwell told them to.

7) The jihadists think God is on their side and Bush thinks God is on our side, so like, what’s the difference?

8) Anyone who believes Roe v. Wade was a dark day for our democracy wants to ban abortion.

9) Opponents of affirmative action don’t really care whether black kids get an education.

10) Now that Republicans are in charge of the Senate, they will appoint judges with specific right-wing political views.

11) Opposition to minimum-wage laws arises from an indifference to the plight of the poor.

12) “Faith” is a code word for racism, misogyny and homophobia.

If you voted for Bush, you are probably chuckling at the idea that anyone could believe such things. But if you voted for Kerry, you almost certainly agree with one or more of these statements, because these are the explicit post-election opinions of those who supported him and ran his campaign. They are among the core beliefs of those who lost the election.

It is not for me to lecture Democrats on how to fix themselves, but I can tell you how those of us on the other side of the fence perceive the message of today’s Democratic Party. We see it as mean-spirited, snottily superior, and lacking respect for our democratic procedures and traditions. In addition, we are puzzled by the unquestioning, even ritualistic, nature of the abuse directed at us. Maybe you think that characterization is wrong or unfair, but all I’m telling you is the truth. That is what all us Neanderthals really think.

In short, lowbrows like me do not simply disagree with the leftists that now run the Democratic Party. We have been insulted by them, routinely, and that made it personal. November 2nd was, in large part, payback time. And it’s hard for me to see how these guys will ever win a national election until they change their tune.

Copyright 2004 Michael Kubacki