Calm down, everyone. Calm down.
There are to be no tears, no emigrating, no ripping up of passports. Why such fear and angst?
Those negative emotions are exactly what caused this mess in the first place, only flipped on their ear. What we learned last night is this: We are, it seems very clear, in the minority.
Left-leaning views are not shared by most people in the country. If you dislike President Bush, if you are unhappy with the way the country is headed, if you feel that things are not what you would like them to be … you are not of the majority opinion.
That says a great deal. You can view it as an indication that you should leave the country, that we are “living a nightmare,” that everything is going to get worse. Or you can recognize that there is a lot of work left to do before 50 million other people share your opinion (and, assuming that half of them have at least one child, that brings it up to 75 million Americans who hold conflicting beliefs).
There is a long way to go before “our” views become mainstream — and, don’t forget, they never really have been. Even Kerry didn’t hold to many of the beliefs that are central ideologies of left-of-center Democrats.
“We” lost, fair and square. Frankly, it wasn’t even close. Millions upon millions of people believe President Bush’s idologies and moral stances (which proved to be the most important issue in the race — who knew?!) are closer to theirs than Kerry’s were.
If that scares you, imagine how “they” feel about “us.” They believe liberals, Democrats, homosexuals, minorities, immigrants and the like are scary. That we are a threat to them. That we are going to undo the progress they have made.
Which is exactly what “we” think about “them.”
Maybe we all have more in common than we care to admit.
What I am certain of personally is this: If this country continues to see things as “us” vs. “them,” as “we” and “they,” as “right” and “wrong,” then we have a huge rift that is only going to deepen. It does not matter who is president. Remember, if Kerry had won, there would still have been 50 million people unhappy with that decision, whether you think it would have been “right” or “wrong.” What matters is that people take this chance to recognize that there is a deep division in the U.S. that needs to be acknowledged before it can be filled in and we can all start coming together rather than staying on our opposite sides of the fence. Because all we’re doing at this point is making each other angrier, less tolerant (that goes for both sides) and more scared of trying to acknowledge and respect different views.
“Diversity” and “tolerance” work both ways.
Steve Expounded Thusly:
Very well said. However, I have a few things to point out.
We are not the vast minority. 48% to 51% is a pretty small gap. More of the country shares liberal ideas than I think we or “the other side” realizes.
The news and even my own personal experience shows that the people more on the fence in this election did not like Bush or his policies, but voted for him because he was the easy choice. “Easy choice” is my admittedly negative term, but it covers documented concepts from this election like not feeling comfortable changing during a war on terror (a war that will, by the way, never end–see Israel et al.) and not being willing to vote for an unknown variable (Kerry) though the current leader is disliked.
I like what Nader said in his conscession speech. Something like, “To be progressive is to lose. And lose again. And lose again. Until finally we win.” Really, when you look at the reasons Bush was liked, they were all negatives. Even the high exit poll answer “morality” is a negative, because Bush uses his version of morality to be exclusionary. True morality is a tolerant and inclusive principle, while Bush and other extreme conservatives use morality to exclude.
Of course we lost fair and square. So far, I have not heard anyone cry foul that this election was stolen or fixed. It was merely a disappointing loss.
Regarding your statement about “them” feeling like “we” are the threats: EXACTLY. They feel threatened by ideas that are not what they are used to. And, sadly, in order to protect themselves, they have to hate us or look down on us or even work to actively pass laws banning us. I’m sorry, but that is not an understandable or acceptable reaction. I am not sitting here, in reverse, saying that there should be constitutional amendments passed to ban people who love God from participating in Halloween, or banning straight people from going to the gym. (Ha ha!) The concept of exclusionary doctrine is what hurts our country more than the divisiveness.
I think the thing is the conservatives truly see us as a “them.” It is the likes of us, the more liberal and progressive types, who end up bringing the concept of acceptance and tolerance to the rest of the world. It’s not exclusionary, it’s INCLUSIVE in the end. But conservatives do not want “strange and untoward elemnts” to be included. So they cement the us vs. them concept from the getgo. I honestly believe, if this were the 1930s, say, Bush would have been gung-ho on a constitutional ban preventing blacks from eating in white restaurants. That’s the falacy of his kind of morality and bigotry.
Now this is a debate! Excellent! I love talking about these ideas. I look forward to the next round.
John Expounded Thusly:
“Vast” majority was wrong. I stand corrected. Thank you.
But to your points:
Who is “them” and who is “us”? If what you say is true, that conservatives see us as a “them,” then the corollary must be that we see “them” in the same light. There are two sides here who do not want to back down. Suddenly, wars in Ireland and the Middle East that go back hundreds or thousands of years begin to make sense. Each side is right. It’s the “other guy” who’s wrong. Remember “WarGames”? “The game cannot be won.”
Your supposition that Bush may have banned blacks from sitting at thw “white counter” may be true — unfortunately, conventional wisdom as recently as forty years ago was that blacks were not equal to whites. That women were not equal to men. That gays were not equal to straights.
Has anything changed? When a senior executive at a major company can conceivably be a black lesbian, I’d say things have changed. Not as quickly as we’d like, but they have. And once things change, it is difficult to go back.
Was Bush the “easy choice”? I don’t know. I have a feeling many of the people who voted for Bush thought long and hard about their selection. (No, I was not among them, just to get it on the record.) But deciding that we should not change in the midst of turmoil is not necessarily an unwise decision, and I, for one, don’t chalk it up to being an “easy choice.” Many people who voted for Bush did so even knowing that domestic matters could get worse. A lot of them were people with sons, daughters, husbands, wives, sisters and brothers fighting in the Middle East, and their belief is that staying the course makes it more likely that the “conflict” (remember, it’s not officially a war) will be over more quickly. Maybe that’s faulty thinking, but they know more on the subject than I do.
For me, I’m not entirely convinced Kerry would have governed any better than Bush. Most importantly, he would not have been able to change the hearts and minds of staunch conservatives very quickly. And things might well have gotten worse — at least for the short term. Don’t forget that the change wrought in the 1960s came about in violent, ugly ways, resulting in thousands upon thousands of people dying so that others could be free. We don’t think of it as a war too often, but it really was — one fought at home, while we were fighting another in Vietnam.
Are we prepared, at this very moment, for those kinds of experiences here at home? To once again fight for civil rights for minority groups, even if that fight turns violent and mean? Or are our minds to pre-occupied with what’s happening in the Middle East, and why it’s happening to begin with, to really focus on our problems here at home?
How did I get so far off topic of what I wanted to say?
Which was this: The Republicans did an incredibly, admirably good job at mobilizing their core constituency and getting them to vote. The Democrats did an extraordinarily poor job of doing that. In between swaying to concerts by Bruce Springsteen, flashing war medals and holding thoughtful debates, Kerry forgot to get us truly motivated. (Or, at least, enough of us to matter.) By trying to appeal to everyone, he failed to argue effectively enough that change would be tough, but no change would be worse.
As “liberals,” we’re divided into way too many factions — the gays, the blacks, the women, the tree-huggers. Conservatives have the “blessing” (if it can be called that) of sameness. They share “traditional” views that are easy to define; we, on the other hand, believe all sorts of different things. It’s hard to talk to “us.” It’s easy to talk to “them.”
Rarely, people have come along who can talk to everyone. We need one of those people again.
Steve Expounded Thusly:
I did actally respond to this! See my post on November 8th.
The Wren Forum » Lost? Expounded Thusly:
[…] Part 1: “Calm down, calm down.” […]
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