The Aftermath

If you're happy that George W Bush won the election, enjoy your moment. If,like me, you're experiencing an emotional hole that mere words can't easily describe, remember this feeling.
As hard as it seems to believe, it's going to pass. In a week or so, you'll be amazed at how much better you feel. And that's good - humans aren't built to feel this kind of disapointment for long periods.

Here's a couple of things that I believe strongly in, and that I think it's important to remember. Number one, of course, is that this was a close election. Bush won by 51 to 49%. If you imagine the voting public as a group of 100 people in a town hall, 49 of them agree with YOU. The other 51 people agree with the other guy. Think about that. It's important because the Bush folks want to paint this as a 'mandate'. They won fair and square (this time) but it's not a mandate. All we need to do is convince 2 of those folks to change their mind and we win.

The trick is, how do we do that?

There are some who think we should 'move towards the right' and abandon some liberal principles in order
to get elected next time. I disagree. Clinton moved the dems as far to the right as they could go and not
be repubs. I mean, the new senator for Oklahoma wants to ban gays from being teachers and install the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions. Do we really want to move closer to that?

Here's why those 2 people went with Bush rather than Kerry. They liked Bush more. He connected with them. They were scared, and thought he could do a better job of protecting them. Those 2 people are not the straw-munching, bible bashing rednecks we keep hearing about. They're regular folks who gave Bush the benefit of the doubt. In four years I don't think they'll be wanting to do that again. I really don't.

The problems that smart people (you know, like us) can see now are going to become obvious even to dumb people in the next four years. Iraq, the environment, the economy. There are no simple quick fixes to these issues. And as soon as they get worse (and believe me,they're going to get worse - a lot worse) then they will trump sideshows like abortion, stem cell research and gay marriage. Things on planet earth are gonna get as ugly as a Liza Minnelli honeymoon night.

Of course, that doesn't really make us feel much better, does it? We wanted to win. And not just to be right. We wanted to win because 4 more years are really going to make the world a more dangerous place, in many ways.

So what now? Well, we keep at it. We keep working, we hope that the world won't be irrevocably wrecked in the next 4 years. We do all we can to convince those other two people in the town hall to walk over to our side of the room.

And we keep our sense of humor, because without that, we're really fucked.