There's been some interesting revisionism going on from the right regarding Dubya's mandate, especially surrounding the issue of morality and the magnitude of the win and what it means.
Wars the US has fought and had Presidential elections during: War of 1812 (1812-1815) Civil War (1861-1865) World War II (1941-1945) Korea (1950-1953) Vietnam (1964-1972) Iraq War (2002-????)
Now, Elections Held during these wars: 1812 Election: Madison (incumbent) defeats Clinton (128 vs. 89) 1864 Election: Lincoln (incumbent) defeats McClellan (212 vs. 21) 1944 Election: Roosevelt (incumbent) defeats Dewey (432 vs. 99) 1952 Election: No incumbent - Eisenhower wins 1964 Election: Johnson (incumbent) defeats Goldwater (486 vs. 52) 1968 Election: No incumbent - Nixon wins 2004 Election: Bush (incumbent) defeats Kerry (286 vs. 252)
So, we have 7 elections...5 of them incumbent elections. The worst any candidate perfored before 2004 was Madison in the war of 1812, only winning 59% of the electoral votes. Lincoln won 91%, Roosevelt won 81%, and Johnson won 90%.
Bush only won 53% of the electoral vote.
Now consider the charge being bandied about that this election was won because of the "morality" factor. Frank Rich (NYT registration required, sorry) eloquently calls shenanigans on the whole enterprise.
It's beginning to look a lot like "Groundhog Day." Ever since 22 percent of the country's voters said on Nov. 2 that they cared most about "moral values," opportunistic ayatollahs on the right have been working overtime to inflate this nonmandate into a landslide by ginning up cultural controversies that might induce censorship by a compliant F.C.C. and, failing that, self-censorship by TV networks. Seizing on a single overhyped poll result, they exaggerate their clout, hoping to grab power over the culture.
The mainstream press, itself in love with the "moral values" story line and traumatized by the visual exaggerations of the red-blue map, is too cowed to challenge the likes of the American Family Association. So are politicians of both parties. It took a British publication, The Economist, to point out that the percentage of American voters citing moral and ethical values as their prime concern is actually down from 2000 (35 percent) and 1996 (40 percent).
Atrios reasonably asks why this isn't making more of a ripple, and why the morals meme persists in spite of the facts.
Why are the Democrats not pointing this out? Are they so terrified that a Racist Radical Cleric like Dobson or Fallwell will call them "unchristian" that they can't even point out facts? Let's be clear about this. In 1996, when 40 percent of Americans based their votes on "moral values," they re-elected Bill Clinton. Now that the number of Americans who base their votes on "moral values" has been cut almost in half, they selected George Bush. And this gives the Racist Radical Clerics the ability to force their "religion" down everyone's throats?
And where's the discussion over what "moral values" means to different people? I've never thought that lining your own pocket at the public's expense, lying America into a war, or stirring up hate against minority groups were American values.
Her: Do you want some cranberry cinnamon goat cheese with the salad? Me: "Cranberry cinnamon goat cheese?" Who are we, now? Her: The Pendeltons. Didn't you get the memo? Me: Apparently not.
It isn't about they won and we lost. Over the blogosphere and elsewhere, I have noted with some alarm that there are those who see this as an "oh well, wait till next time," and some who voted for GW are pleased to rub the runny red liberal nose in it. I think both of these groups are missing the larger picture. I've had no sleep so it's hard to find the words that capture it. Luckily someone else did it. I alluded to this below (the theocratic bootheel) but galiel at daily kos has captured it in a most prescient and lucid way. I urge you to read the whole article, but I've extensively excerpted the bits here that hit me with the most clarity and sense of recognition: this I fear is what the Bushco win really means.
This is not about Republicans or Democrats. This is not about the war. This is not about the economy. This is not even about counting the votes.
This is the final step in the 20-year creeping coup by the theocrats, the Dominionists.
---------------- You can hear it in the media's codewords: this election did NOT turn on Iraq or the economy or security, it turned on "moral values", the politically correct code-word for theocratic values, i.e., placing one's religion above the laws of man. Exit polls show that "moral values" were the most common #1 concern among voters, and that among those who marked "moral values" as their primary concern, 80% voted for Bush. Every state that had a same-sex marriage ban up for decision voted the theocrat way.
--------------- When analysis of local races around the nation becomes available, it will become clear that theocrats have advanced everywhere, gaining control of even more school boards, gaining even more representation in city councils, winning even more seats in state legislatures.
Make no mistake, this election was the keystone of the theocrat coup. All that is left now is carrying out the agenda and changing the laws of this nation irrevocably to gut the Bill of Rights and establish a Dominionist government in America.
IN the coming days, Reinquist and others will resign, including half of the exhausted courageous liberals and moderates who held the line longer than anyone expected, and Bush will appoint a solid theocrat majority to the Supreme Court, and the Dems will not be able to stop it, fillibuster or not. The Dominionists have enough stealth candidates to push through like they pushed through Thomas, and the public pressure will be irressistible. In the next four years, theocrats will fill life-time appointments in the judiciary all over the nation, and essentially open the gates for the coming theocratic legislative agenda.
The administration will complete the overhaul of the science advisory committees and the Dept of Health and Human Services, laying the ground work for the overturning of Roe v. Wade and ending all biological research deemed objectionable to the theocrats.
They will complete their overhaul of the Education Department, starting a process of eliminating evolution from the national debate and working with the local and state boards, where they have now increased their control, to introduce creationism into the curriculum.
They will complete their overhaul of the Energy, Agriculture, Interior and EPA, which are already ridden with theocrats who reject the theory of evolution, and thus the concept of "fossil fuels", believing instead that their god has placed energy resources in the earth in just the right amounts for human domination of nature.
As soon as the theocrat majority is esconsed in the Supreme Court, Congress will pass three key theocrat bills, which already passed the House this time around and will pass the Senate next time around:
The Marriage Protection Act, which would bar federal courts, including the Supreme Court from intervening in cases involving a state's recognition of another state's civil rights bills regarding marriage;
The Pledge Preservation Act, which would bar the federal courts, including the Supreme Court, from hearing challenges to the "Under God" part of the pledge;
The big one, the Constitution Restoration Act, which would bar the federal courts, including the Supreme Court, from hearing any challenges to violations of the Establishment Clause, the bill having been written by Harb Titus, who defended former Judge Roy Moore, the "Ten Commandments" judges. The bill goes even further, potentially barring challenges to the constiutionality of state laws, for example, mandating stoning for adultery, if such laws are based on Old Testament rationale. ----------------------
Now, most people don't understand what is really going on here.
They focus on homophobia as the issue, or they trivialize the Pledge issue as not being critical to Separation traditions.
The real point is that the theocrats are constricting the courts' ability to challenge the establishment of religion in this country. Making this a Christian Dominionist nation based on literal interpretation of Old Testament law is an explicit part of the theocrat agenda.
--------------------
What about Ohio, you say?
The judges deciding matters in Ohio, like the two judges that allowed challenges inside the polling places, are theocrats - one was the author of the original draft of the Thornburgh brief urging the Supreme Court to overturn Roe V. Wade, the other was the dissenting voice in cases about 10 Commandment displays on government property.
You think it is a coincidence that Ohio is the first place where statewide, the teaching of creationism has been mandated in science class?
I woke at 2:00 am Tokyo time in a sweat. By now I'm just numb.
The headline says it all. I don't think people really know what they've done. Truly. The possible rollback on social progress, the autocratic bootheel of religious fundamentalism that has an open door now, with no re-election worries to dampen the momentum...
If you are an undecided voter and are reading this I hate you and pray for a pox upon your house.
I know, not very clothmotherly of me, is it? Well, hell. Here is the situation.
Back in Japan (yes, I just turned around and came right back). We had a little electrical storm upon arrival in Osaka last night (only a week after living through the last and worst typhoon [so far] and missing by mere inches a cataclysmic quake outside Osaka). I'm fairly convinced that lightning hit the plane as we were vectoring in. We landed with much difficulty and sweaty palms. I'm battling a head cold that is rapidly transmogrifying into a sinus infection. My colleagues at the pharmaceutical company here told me that they could get me an appointment with a doctor if needed (and then one on the sly said if I need some antibiotics he could get them for me...yes, this is why your drugs are so expensive). I missed Halloween with V and with Nicholas and I'm sorely miffed at that as well.
Things could have gone better tonight, what with all the preparation we put into the research here. Too much heat (it's 70+ outside right now) and too little sleep and poor success = crabby me.
Did I mention the jetlag? Did I need to?
So to top it all off, I am watching the BBC coverage of the elections. They sent a correspondent to key swing states to talk to voters, both decided and undecided. As this earnest-seeming fellow began polling the undecideds, I could feel the bile rising. The more I listened to these simpering half-wits parade their indecision like a badge of honor the more frustrated I became. Here is why these people need to be corraled into dumpsters and pitched into the ocean, screaming, from a great height:
There are only three ways to interpret indecision at this time in the campaign (hell, the same was true a month ago) (and here he goes with another numbered list for some reason) ( and a second colon where one would have sufficed):
You are lazy.
You are too stupid to draw another breath.
You are a superstitious nutbag and/or a clown like Dubya who lives in the "realm of the gut" instead of the "realm of facts."
You are a contemptible attention whore who should be dragged bodily from your home, slathered in honey and pitched naked atop a nest of agitated fire ants. That will get you some notice too.
Let me elaborate. Points one and two share considerable overlap. If you cannot draw strong comparisons between the major party candidates, ones in which issues of personal gain and the common good do not logically and convincingly align in favor of one clear choice over another, then you have either been willfully ignoring the news or your cortex lacks sufficient density and gyri to function as anything other than a loose wet hat. Either way, you should not be rewarded for your stupidity and sloth with network attention and a free pass to the presidential debates and multiple whistle stops in your home town for town meetings with the candidates. Do your homework. It's your civic duty.
Point three alludes to those people who expect to have a vision or other intuitive brain spasm that will push them over the edge in favor of one candidate (maybe they'll wake up and find that Rover's tongue is lolling out his mouth to the left on November 2, indicating that the universe wants them to vote Democratic.) These are the people who suddenly were galvanized by the bin Laden video. NOW I know what to do. Because I had this visceral reaction! And that's how all critical decision-making should unfold. Asshats.
The fourth group is the dank, silverfish-infested basement of the voting bloc, and those who should be visited with swift vengeance and furious anger, a la Ezekiel. Tom Tomorrow did a great cartoon about this after the 2000 election. Look at me! How interesting, that I'm perplexed by all this! Don't you want to cater to me? Tools. It should perhaps not be too surprising that such people would flourish in the shadow of the Bush presidency, glorifying as it has willful ignorance, ham-fisted thuggery, and the vapid stare as traits to be admired and emulated. The fact is that these people have been around forever. I've never been bothered by them so much, except that at the core they are simply liars, and it is more costly than ever to make bad choices based on a lie.
So that's my rant. It's almost Tuesday here, but we're 14 hours ahead so in this way like so many others I am distanced from all the frenetic happenings on the 2nd. As they say about nuclear war, I suspect when it's all over the living will envy the dead. Of course, it won't be over until December or January, or maybe even later once the lawyers are all through.
Go vote. And if you haven't yet decided which way you're going to go, at least have the decency not to be proud of the fact.
ClothMother_old
