The hard truth about this election...

[regnaD kciN]

Even assuming that we have a successful fight in Ohio, and wind up winning the presidency by a whisker, the 2004 election has been a disaster.

I'm thinking of the G.O.P. picking up even more Senate and House seats. I'm thinking of losing our titular leader in the Senate. I'm thinking of certifiably-insane Republican candidates like Coburn and Bunning still managing to hang on to their seats. I'm thinking about the eleven anti-gay-marriage amendments passing in states, including places as ostensibly-liberal as Oregon. I'm thinking of the youth vote that wasn't, the undecided vote that wasn't, the Democratic turnout that wasn't. I'm thinking of the GOTV efforts, such as the one that had me standing in a downpour for three hours yesterday and making 130 phone calls on election day, in the end meaning not a damn thing.

And, above all, I'm thinking of this one thing: that, according to exit polls, the #1 concern of those voting this year was, not Iraq, not the economy, not even terrorism, but..."Moral Values." Apparently defined as "forcing gays back into the closet," and nothing else. The fact that you may have no job (or a job that forces you to work 60 hours a week with no overtime), that you are economically worse off than you were in the '90s, that we are in a quagmire that has cost us one thousand of our young people (and counting), even that we may be attacked by al-Qaeda once again -- none of that matters compared to making sure that it remains "Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!"

Sorry, but the hard fact that we have to face is that this country is now one that is controlled by conservative fundamentalists. Not just "heavily influenced," but outright "controlled." What with all the vagaries of demographics, we are a country where the South and Great Plains trump the Northeast, North Central, and West, where the suburbs and countryside trump the cities, and where those dominant regions are themselves dominated by fundamentalist Protestantism of that particular reactionary, nativist type that is not even common among evangelicals in the rest of the world.

In short, this country is now as much of a fundamentalist theocracy as, say, Iran. And I see little or no chance that this will change in the near or not-so-near future.

:-(

[Walt Starr]

1. We are well and truly fucked

I'm thinking about changing my registration to Republcian and joining the local mega church for show. I could easily pass.

[freetobegay]

3. I don't blend in as well

The 4 inch heels usually give me away.

[NovaCat]

5. All I can say is...

Im getting tired of losing. Ive not conceding the presidency. But we lost the Senate and House big time. AGAIN! This same crap happened in 2002... we thought we might actually GAIN a few seats. 2004, it even LOOKED like we would gain, and then suddenly we lost big time.

[SoCalDem]

10. DIEBOLD...n/t

:(

[LynnTheDem]

2. I agree.

Sadly.

[Mojambo]

4. You nailed it my friend

Tonight the cultural cold war went hot and the Republicans drew significant blood.

[Still_Notafraid]

6. I agree

world history has shown when church and state merge then religion declines,we have yet to experience the theocracy that is yet to come
but when it does rest assured that one day it will fall and democracy will become more prominent in the us then it ever was,to bad it wont be in our life times =(

[milkyway]

7. Well said. It might not be the time to say this bu... why did gay marriage

have to be pushed in a Presidential election year?

[TriMetFan]

12. When you mean pushed by whom?

I'm a lesbian and all I can say I'm very pissed off about anyone using me or my family. I'm pissed that I pay taxes just like everyone else and I can't have the same American rights as any other married person out there. I'm pissed that my Country is going to hell and that the rest of the world is going to hate us because of the right wing nuts. I'm pissed that more young men & women are going to die in a war that should not have happen. I'm pissed that this FUCKING JERK is going to be able to appoint more Judges and that my rights as a women are going to get FUCKED with. And YES I'm One Very Angry Women Right Now.

[regnaD kciN]

15. From what I understand...

...the issues wasn't "pushed" by gays and lesbians this year. rather, some court cases that had been long pending came down, declaring that same-sex unions receive the same legal protections of opposite-sex ones. At that point, it was the Republicans themselves that jumped on the issue and proceeded to "push" it.

[bobbieinok]

19. it was carefully planned by the religious right....you could hear them

discussing it on religious right radio and TV.....in Oct 2003 there was a gigantic 'defense of marriage' week with conferences etc......I thot at the time they felt abortion was getting weak as a motivator and they needed something new to fire up everyone

the amendment failed in congress...that was probably planned too, because I don't think there was a real chance of it passing.....but it got everyone fired up to at least protect their state from the evil

the MA supreme court decision may have been planned or just used

[rooboy]

8. I'm often surprised by how naiive progressives are...

about how conservative right wingers think. All Americans need to go and sit at the back of an Assemblies of God church one Sunday morning - then it will all make sense to them. There is no democracy - only fear of judgement.

But make no mistake - whether it's the church or something else, the edifice will eventually collapse. You can't steal from people who have nothing left to give, and there will be a realization one day that they've been had. It just seems that the time has not yet come. But it will come.

[regnaD kciN]

14. That's a valuable point...

All Americans need to go and sit at the back of an Assemblies of God church one Sunday morning - then it will all make sense to them. There is no democracy - only fear of judgement.

If you're a hellfire-and-brimstone fundamentalist, democracy may be a convenient system for running politics, but it's not a guiding principle. The guiding principle is a top-down system where God dictates the rules and you obey or suffer the consequences. And, when the spirit of democracy conflicts with what they see as the will of God...it's your responsibility to follow the latter, even at the expense of undermining the former.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

9. It is troubling

Hell, it was troubling when Bush was able to handle Gore and shoehorn his way in there.
Fuck. These people need to wake the fuck up and go to Iraq themselves.

[Gopens]

11. This country's hatred of gays and lesbians makes me sick.

And it's bipartisan, too. Plenty of Kerry voters voted to ban gay marriage, too, apparently. I think the only people in this country who favor gay marriage (or at least don't think it should be banned) are liberals like us and libertarians. And our numbers aren't nearly enough to overcome the hordes of conservatives and moderates who for some reason just don't like gay people.

So many things that are happening tonight make me horribly, horribly ashamed of my country.

[pmbryant]

13. In the deep dark of this depressing night...

I have a hard time finding anything to disagree with in your post.

Where do we go from here?

Peter

[regnaD kciN]

20. Here's the big Democratic dilemma...

For the past few years/decades, there has been an uneasy balance between the "moderate" and "liberal" wings of the party. In the last few years, the former have been represented by the DLC; the latter by...well, not really by any organization, but last year were typified by the Dean campaign.

The latter held to a progressive stance on both economic and social issues.

The former sought to repudiate the progressive economic element of that agenda, while keeping the social liberalism. In other words, as DLC critics described it somewhat simplisticly, what they were seeking was "pro-choice Republicanism."

The problem is that, if the results this election are taken as a fair reflection of where the American electorate stands, it is precisely the social liberalism espoused by both the moderates and the progressives that was the key factor leading to the Democratic defeat yesterday.

In other words, neither the DLC nor the Dean movement have a chance of seizing the American electorate as it now is.

And what's the alternative? One might try a process of elimination, and decide that what is needed is an agenda combining economic liberalism with a conservative social policy. Call it "Liebermanism," perhaps. But can this succeed, either? I think not, simply because too much of the Democratic base is made up of those directly, personally affected by said social liberalism (women, gays, minorities, etc.). To "reform" the Democratic Party in this way would require "turning on one's own" -- and, to play Devil's Advocate, even if we were willing to do so, it's very doubtful that we would be able to recover enough of a "new" base to even make up for that purge. At this point, I don't see a way around this dilemma.

:-(

[neomonkey]

16. What depressed me most

is that we are mired in this for a good 20 years.

Shit like this doesn't change overnight (in the absence of revolution).

This is generational. We are stuck.

[NightOwwl]

17. Can we who live in the Blue States secede from the Red States?

We can elect our own damn President.

Hell, I'm just throwing things out there, but it might get people thinking.

[regnaD kciN]

21. Whether or not this is possible...

...it points to the big problem -- which I was trying to work my way to in the "dilemma" post above.

The problem is that, although we claim to be one nation, we really aren't anymore. Look at the electoral map, which spells it out even more clearly than in 2000:

We are four nations.

First, the northeast and middle-Atlantic states. Basically, all the original, 1776-era American colonies south to the Potomac. Solidly blue.

Then, the north-central, Great Lakes states. Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois (and possibly Iowa). Also solidly blue (with the as-yet-determined exception noted).

Then, the west coast. California, Oregon, Washington. Blue as far as the eye can see.

Then, there's the rest of America -- the Old South, the southwest, the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain states. A solid blanket of red.

As it stands right now, that last bloc composes 51.5% of the American electorate. The first three make up around 48.5%. And, as social, political, and economic entities, they have little in common.

One of the old academic dinner-party questions about politics brings up the question of a democracy where, say, it's made up of 51% Nazis and 49% Jews. Pontificate all you want about democracy and majority rule, it is of little value when a slim majority is hostile to, and has power over, a substantial minority. I would submit that this is where we are finding ourselves now. Looking at it objectively, the most sensible thing we could do would be to agree to go our separate ways, and form four nations where there is now one. But we know full well that those currently in control will never willingly surrender their control over us.

[RummyTheDummy]

18. And that was their plan ALL ALONG

Get those gay marriage questions on ballots in swing states and drive up the hate monger turnout. From the looks of things, it worked probably even better than Rove could have imagined.