Sdaeriji
03-11-2004, 21:28
The best thing about this election is that it does not have the uncertainty of 2000. Be you a Republican or a Democrat, the least we all can admit is that the fiasco of 2000 did terrible harm to this nation and having a clear-cut winner the day after the election will allow us to get along just kindly.
That being said, commence ranting.
All this partisan bullshit about how the people showing that this nation is a conservative one is just patently incorrect. These things go in trends. Enough rule by one party gets the people frustrated enough to vote to the other party. You will see a great swing to the Democratic Party in 2008. They will likely take the Senate or House, perhaps both. If they can find a confident and charismatic leader, they may even take the presidency. There will be four or eight years of Democratic rule, and then it will swing back to the Republicans. It's how it's happened for a while now; it's not likely to change.
The particular reasons that I think the Democratic party will win in 2008 is that the ultra, neoconservative path that the Republican party has taken with the Bush administration is very likely to alienate many moderate Republicans and Libertarians, who will swing to the Democrats. Then, after eight years of Democratic administration, those same people, along with moderate Democrats, will swing back to the Republican Party. It's just how things work. People in the middle tend to swing towards the side opposite the one that has been ruling. I voted Bush in 2000, and Kerry in this election. Both parties take an election win as a mandate from the people to go ahead with the far-right or far-left policies that they want to push, when the crucial voters that they won do not support these policies. That is why they continuously swing the other way. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why Gore lost the 2000 election (other than his charming personality). Center Democrats and Clinton-voting Republicans had had enough of the Democrats over the past 8 years. And, unless something amazingly drastic occurs, center Republicans and Bush-supporting Democrats will swing back to the Democrats after having their fill of the Republicans for eight years.
I think you all need to realize that this win is not a mandate from the populace for Bush to go ahead with all his diabolical plans for galactic conquest. Bush barely took half of half the voting population. Of the overall voting age population, Bush was supported by 27.2%, and Kerry was supported by 25.5% of the population. The Republicans will at most have 53 out of 100 seats in the Senate, perhaps only 51, and 228 out of 435 seats in the House. These are hardly dominating numbers. For any particular Republican bill, all the Democrats would need is a few Republicans to come over to defeat it. This nation is more or less divided fifty-fifty, and it will show. This win is not going to let Bush declare himself dictator, nor will it allow him to add a gay marriage ban to the Constitution. What is a lot more likely is that you will see the same sort of government gridlock that we have had since the Reagan era. Yes, the Republicans won, but not by some enormous percentage that is going to allow them to recreate the USA as a theocracy. Yes, 11 states passed gay marriage bans, and out of those several disallow civil unions. But they will fall in the courts. Bush is neither going to eliminate term limits for the president nor is he going to create concentration camps for liberals. Going along with that, Bush is not going to get prayer back into public schools nor will he outlaw abortions.
This was an election between two candidates so similar that you could easily imagine them switching sides. They only differed on a few issues. Both said they oppose abortion, with Bush doing so more vehemently. Both said they disapprove of gay marriage, with Bush being much more adamant about this. Both say they support stem cell research, with Kerry doing so only slightly more. Both approve of the war on terror. The main point of contention, besides who had a more disgraceful military career, is the war in Iraq, and even there they barely differ. I think both sides see this as an off election, just like 2000. Think about it. Do you think Bush could have won if he'd run against Clinton? Could Kerry ever possibly have defeated Reagan? I highly doubt it. These two men are not the pinnacles of their respective parties; they barely represent their respective parties.
And neither side can claim any sort of moral victory in this campaign. Both sides got low-down and dirty. Allow me to relate examples from my own personal experience. I am from Massachusetts, a heavily Democratic state, but I go to school in New Hampshire, which was a swing state this election. Naturally, living on a college campus, there is a severe liberal bent. Activists would routinely ask me where I was from. Once they found out that I was from Massachusetts, they could barely contain their enthusiasm. "You should register to vote in New Hampshire; it's a swing state." To which I would invariably respond with something like "I want to vote for my local politicians because my choices for them are a lot more important to me than the president." This would elicit various negative reactions, all the way from me being selfish to me being a traitor to the Democratic tradition of Massachusetts. I was a traitor to Massachusetts for not leaving the state to vote in New Hampshire. And heaven forbid I have anything critical to say about Kerry. Similarly, on Monday, Kerry supporters peppered the sidewalks around campus with pro-Kerry messages like "Vote Kerry!" or "Kerry in 2004!" in chalk. Monday night, on my way to my astronomy lab, I found Bush supporters out with chalk, defacing the Kerry messages by crossing out the name "Kerry" and replacing it with "Bush", or writing "sucks" next to Kerry's name. There are more than enough sidewalks on this campus for them to create their own, pro-Bush messages, but they instead chose to fall to a lower level. So whenever Republicans claim this as a "great victory", I hope they all remember the lows they had to stoop to achieve said "victory". And for any Democrats who continue to take the moral high ground when it comes to the campaign, isolating and pointing out Republican immaturity, remember the dirt that you carry on yourselves. Neither side should be proud of themselves in this election.
I really wish the two sides of this country could clear the propaganda from their minds for a few seconds and take a look at where the other side is coming from. People aren't totally unreasonable. Both sides have very legitimate justifications for why they voted the way they did. Democrats, all Republicans are not authoritarian bigots who want to cram their religion down your throats. They voted for Bush because they are honestly scared of terrorism, and honestly believe that Bush has done a good job with the war on terror. Their religion is important to them, and while they do not want to enforce their views upon you at every turn, things like abortion and gay marriage are distasteful to them, and they have every right to have the beliefs they have. Conversely, Republicans, Democrats are not all pot-smoking, baby-killing hippies who want terrorists and the French to take over the country. They voted for Kerry because they are afraid that the fear of terrorism might make America lose the freedoms that it holds so dear. Their freedoms are important to them, and while not wanting the nation to lie down to enemies, they think that our zeal to defend ourselves might have come at too great a price. Democrats don't love America any less than Republicans do. Sometimes it seems that we get caught up in this whole liberal/conservative, left/right, Democrat/Republican, Kerry/Bush thing that we seem to forget that we are all still Americans, something that we should be damn proud of. Remember the national unity we had in the wake of 9/11? We need that back.
All being said, I think you all need to step back and look at this rationally. How much does who the president of the United States is affect your daily lives? Is it really worth getting into such a fuss over the fact that your "team" won or lost? Does it really matter in the grander scheme of things? It's not like either president is going to single-handedly cause the downfall of the United States. So, while I am afraid of Bush simultaneously declaring war on every country in the world AND the Klingon Empire, I would have been similarly afraid of Kerry sending fruit baskets to terrorist leaders with little cards asking them to please stop bombing the shit out of us. And while I'm glad I won't have to sit through four years of crappy Massachusetts and sandal jokes, I might have to cause the extinction of the chimpanzee out of frustration by the time these next four years are up. And while I don't look forward to giant posters of Jesus in public classrooms across the nation, I wouldn't have much enjoyed pushing through lines of women waiting to get abortions when I go in for my yearly checkup. So, while I may disagree with pretty much everything Bush stands for, I also pretty much disagree with everything Kerry stands for, and in the greater scheme of things, I think I may just survive.
Fin.
That being said, commence ranting.
All this partisan bullshit about how the people showing that this nation is a conservative one is just patently incorrect. These things go in trends. Enough rule by one party gets the people frustrated enough to vote to the other party. You will see a great swing to the Democratic Party in 2008. They will likely take the Senate or House, perhaps both. If they can find a confident and charismatic leader, they may even take the presidency. There will be four or eight years of Democratic rule, and then it will swing back to the Republicans. It's how it's happened for a while now; it's not likely to change.
The particular reasons that I think the Democratic party will win in 2008 is that the ultra, neoconservative path that the Republican party has taken with the Bush administration is very likely to alienate many moderate Republicans and Libertarians, who will swing to the Democrats. Then, after eight years of Democratic administration, those same people, along with moderate Democrats, will swing back to the Republican Party. It's just how things work. People in the middle tend to swing towards the side opposite the one that has been ruling. I voted Bush in 2000, and Kerry in this election. Both parties take an election win as a mandate from the people to go ahead with the far-right or far-left policies that they want to push, when the crucial voters that they won do not support these policies. That is why they continuously swing the other way. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why Gore lost the 2000 election (other than his charming personality). Center Democrats and Clinton-voting Republicans had had enough of the Democrats over the past 8 years. And, unless something amazingly drastic occurs, center Republicans and Bush-supporting Democrats will swing back to the Democrats after having their fill of the Republicans for eight years.
I think you all need to realize that this win is not a mandate from the populace for Bush to go ahead with all his diabolical plans for galactic conquest. Bush barely took half of half the voting population. Of the overall voting age population, Bush was supported by 27.2%, and Kerry was supported by 25.5% of the population. The Republicans will at most have 53 out of 100 seats in the Senate, perhaps only 51, and 228 out of 435 seats in the House. These are hardly dominating numbers. For any particular Republican bill, all the Democrats would need is a few Republicans to come over to defeat it. This nation is more or less divided fifty-fifty, and it will show. This win is not going to let Bush declare himself dictator, nor will it allow him to add a gay marriage ban to the Constitution. What is a lot more likely is that you will see the same sort of government gridlock that we have had since the Reagan era. Yes, the Republicans won, but not by some enormous percentage that is going to allow them to recreate the USA as a theocracy. Yes, 11 states passed gay marriage bans, and out of those several disallow civil unions. But they will fall in the courts. Bush is neither going to eliminate term limits for the president nor is he going to create concentration camps for liberals. Going along with that, Bush is not going to get prayer back into public schools nor will he outlaw abortions.
This was an election between two candidates so similar that you could easily imagine them switching sides. They only differed on a few issues. Both said they oppose abortion, with Bush doing so more vehemently. Both said they disapprove of gay marriage, with Bush being much more adamant about this. Both say they support stem cell research, with Kerry doing so only slightly more. Both approve of the war on terror. The main point of contention, besides who had a more disgraceful military career, is the war in Iraq, and even there they barely differ. I think both sides see this as an off election, just like 2000. Think about it. Do you think Bush could have won if he'd run against Clinton? Could Kerry ever possibly have defeated Reagan? I highly doubt it. These two men are not the pinnacles of their respective parties; they barely represent their respective parties.
And neither side can claim any sort of moral victory in this campaign. Both sides got low-down and dirty. Allow me to relate examples from my own personal experience. I am from Massachusetts, a heavily Democratic state, but I go to school in New Hampshire, which was a swing state this election. Naturally, living on a college campus, there is a severe liberal bent. Activists would routinely ask me where I was from. Once they found out that I was from Massachusetts, they could barely contain their enthusiasm. "You should register to vote in New Hampshire; it's a swing state." To which I would invariably respond with something like "I want to vote for my local politicians because my choices for them are a lot more important to me than the president." This would elicit various negative reactions, all the way from me being selfish to me being a traitor to the Democratic tradition of Massachusetts. I was a traitor to Massachusetts for not leaving the state to vote in New Hampshire. And heaven forbid I have anything critical to say about Kerry. Similarly, on Monday, Kerry supporters peppered the sidewalks around campus with pro-Kerry messages like "Vote Kerry!" or "Kerry in 2004!" in chalk. Monday night, on my way to my astronomy lab, I found Bush supporters out with chalk, defacing the Kerry messages by crossing out the name "Kerry" and replacing it with "Bush", or writing "sucks" next to Kerry's name. There are more than enough sidewalks on this campus for them to create their own, pro-Bush messages, but they instead chose to fall to a lower level. So whenever Republicans claim this as a "great victory", I hope they all remember the lows they had to stoop to achieve said "victory". And for any Democrats who continue to take the moral high ground when it comes to the campaign, isolating and pointing out Republican immaturity, remember the dirt that you carry on yourselves. Neither side should be proud of themselves in this election.
I really wish the two sides of this country could clear the propaganda from their minds for a few seconds and take a look at where the other side is coming from. People aren't totally unreasonable. Both sides have very legitimate justifications for why they voted the way they did. Democrats, all Republicans are not authoritarian bigots who want to cram their religion down your throats. They voted for Bush because they are honestly scared of terrorism, and honestly believe that Bush has done a good job with the war on terror. Their religion is important to them, and while they do not want to enforce their views upon you at every turn, things like abortion and gay marriage are distasteful to them, and they have every right to have the beliefs they have. Conversely, Republicans, Democrats are not all pot-smoking, baby-killing hippies who want terrorists and the French to take over the country. They voted for Kerry because they are afraid that the fear of terrorism might make America lose the freedoms that it holds so dear. Their freedoms are important to them, and while not wanting the nation to lie down to enemies, they think that our zeal to defend ourselves might have come at too great a price. Democrats don't love America any less than Republicans do. Sometimes it seems that we get caught up in this whole liberal/conservative, left/right, Democrat/Republican, Kerry/Bush thing that we seem to forget that we are all still Americans, something that we should be damn proud of. Remember the national unity we had in the wake of 9/11? We need that back.
All being said, I think you all need to step back and look at this rationally. How much does who the president of the United States is affect your daily lives? Is it really worth getting into such a fuss over the fact that your "team" won or lost? Does it really matter in the grander scheme of things? It's not like either president is going to single-handedly cause the downfall of the United States. So, while I am afraid of Bush simultaneously declaring war on every country in the world AND the Klingon Empire, I would have been similarly afraid of Kerry sending fruit baskets to terrorist leaders with little cards asking them to please stop bombing the shit out of us. And while I'm glad I won't have to sit through four years of crappy Massachusetts and sandal jokes, I might have to cause the extinction of the chimpanzee out of frustration by the time these next four years are up. And while I don't look forward to giant posters of Jesus in public classrooms across the nation, I wouldn't have much enjoyed pushing through lines of women waiting to get abortions when I go in for my yearly checkup. So, while I may disagree with pretty much everything Bush stands for, I also pretty much disagree with everything Kerry stands for, and in the greater scheme of things, I think I may just survive.
Fin.