Reactionary

It’s a rainy day in this city, but it’s a rainy day all over the country, all over the world. And it isn’t even George W. Bush that I’m angry at. He is what he is, an uber-war hawk, a fearmonger, an extreme Republican, someone who can’t see any farther past the end of his nose. But then we’ve always known that.

The frightening thing, the thing that scares me more than anything else about all this, is that people agree with him. Millions of people in this country, mostly in the South and Midwest, think just like he does. And I don’t mean Republicans who are in it because of big business. At least love of money is one thing that I understand. No, the real danger is this silent majority. This bigoted, arrogant, ignorant, embarrassing majority (who would quickly accuse me of dealing in stereotypes) has believed this most dangerous of politicians and buys into what he stands for.

It’s incredible to me how people have seen the economy fall on its face, they pay these inflating prices, they lose jobs to cheap overseas markets, and still they vote for the SAME DAMN THING. Gluttons for punishment.

I’ll admit the Democratic party isn’t the most organized etc, but that’s not what this is about. When 51% of the people vote for someone so clearly a BAD president and then get really defensive when asked about it and gloating in victory, it’s frightening. Have the people of the United States come to believe they’re invincible, that they need no one, that they and only THEY are right all the time, damn the consequences? With the internet etc, the world is shrinking more every day and yet Americans are still stuck in isolationist delusions of grandeur. People on boards all across the internet are silencing Europeans, Canadians, and ROWers with things as articulate as, “Shut up, it’s none of your business… America has spoken… America’s politics are our business not yours… Stop making stereotypes about Americans… You can’t even fix your own country…” and on, and on, and on. FYI, people in other parts of the world often know much more about American politics than Americans themselves. Hit any street in any city in the US and few people will know the answers to simple questions like, “What does the Supreme Court do?” or “Who would take over if both the President and the Vice could no longer rule?”

It’s troubling the same kind of people, like the idiot tourist in Rome who didn’t know what the Forum was, actually VOTE and Bush is the result of things like that. It makes it difficult to defend something like democracy. It brings up the old arguement that the people can’t know what’s best for them and so shouldn’t someone save them from themselves since they seem to be hell-bent on choosing what’s worst for them?

Those who I’m referring to won’t understand this entry. They’ll have the knee-jerk, typical reaction of excessive arrogance and ignorance that masquerades as patriotism. Those of you who aren’t one of those people will commiserate, so I know I’m only preaching to the converted but that’s alright. Some things just need to be said.

P.S. It’s telling that people voting for Bush seem to be so concerned about “national security” and their damn “safety” and yet New York City and the entire state of New York has voted a strong Democratic election.

Posted on November 4th, 2004 under General •  Print •  Email • RSS 2.0 feed • Both comments and pings are currently closed