NQR : Topgallant : Rants

Election Aftermath: Post #1 - America, I cry for thee.

Originally posted November 3, 2004:

I'm going to make a series of 3 posts tonight, because they each deal with different parts of my overall response to this tragedy. The first post is criticism; the second post is defense/explanation, as much of one as I can give; and the third is optimism/hope--as much as I can give. I'll try to keep them brief.

There was one specific point last night when I knew Kerry was not going to win, and it was long before I gave up waiting on the Ohio results and went to bed.

It was when I learned that 10 out of the 11 states with anti-gay marriage amendments on the ballots were expected to pass them.

I thought at that moment, We get the leaders we deserve. And this country does not deserve John Kerry.

When Virginia passed its hideous homophobic mariage protection law, I ranted about how everyone in Virginia should be ashamed of themselves, that they didn't do enough, that they could have fought harder, that they could have done more and didn't. I said it was to the shame of every Virginian that this law had passed. And

weatherby replied to me and said basically, 'it's not a matter of doing more--it's a matter of the fact that the vast majority of people in this country are against same-sex marriage and they aren't changing their minds.' I thought her reply was very harsh at the time and I thought that it was a cop-out in a way, because you can always do more, I thought, to fight against ignorance and intolerance.

I didn't really get it until last night.

What could we have done? What more could any of us have done? What more could I, personally, have done? I could have talked to more people, made more phone calls, tried to get the message and the truth and the facts out there to as many people as possible. But I have. I have done so much and so many people around me have done so much, and just reading the concession email from MoveOn.Org just now I felt my heart breaking all over again because there was such gratitude for all the work that millions of us have done all over the country. I am heartbroken for all the excited and positive faces at the county democratic party headquarters Monday night. It was packed so tight with volunteers you couldn't even move. And everyone was so hopeful.

There was nothing more that any of us could have done. We gave so much. And the truth is that it wasn't enough in the face of the sheer majority of voters, and the motives behind their votes.

This victory strikes at the core of my belief system: that there is an inherent rightness to things, that all things happen because of the ultimate benevolence of the forces behind the universe. It is not just that I feel betrayed by America. I sort of feel betrayed by God. I told Erica last night that I feel like some sort of spiritual leader who got stood up by his Messiah. The energy and the love and the sheer overwhelming optimism borne out by the Kerry campaign was supposed to save us. And it didn't.

And why didn't it?

No matter which way you look at it, Bush voters chose their candidate based either on his foreign policy or his domestic policy, or both.

A Bush voter in this election either knew that Bush lied about the Weapons of Mass Destruction that sent us into the War, or didn't know.

If they didn't know, then it is because they didn't want to know, or because they chose to doubt the overwhelming press reports that told them routinely and repeatedly that Bush was lying about the WMDs. If they didn't want to know or chose to doubt the press reports, it is because they had more selfish concerns than educating themselves about what was killing people in Iraq. If they did know, if they had full awareness of the fact that he lied, and voted him into office anyway, then it is because they quite simply had more important priorities than the reasons behind the war.

There are a million different ways you can spin this, and Bush voters are welcome to give me any and every reason why they support Bush this year--and have given them to me before. But there is one overriding fact that no amount of spin and no amount of other concerns can erase: we have a president who sent valiant soldiers to their deaths on a lie.

As an American and as a voter, you either believe in your heart of hearts that that reason and that reason only is sufficient to discredit a man from being leader of the free world, or you don't.

The great divide of the American people, regardless of who they voted for, falls around that reason. I am sure that there were Kerry voters who voted for Kerry for other reasons despite feeling perfectly fine about the war. I have fucking no respect for them.

If you don't think that sending soldiers to die because of a war based on a lie is wrong; and if you don't believe that the president's being responsible for death based on that lie makes him an unfit leader, then I don't care what party you are, you are the problem in America today. You are the problem because you have compromised the basic principle of the sancity of life for security, for an illusion of safety, for more tax breaks, higher test scores for your kids, for protection from the gays, for economic security (and to anybody who thinks bush is going to provide that all i can say is WTF?! but i digress).

And if you voted for Bush, the message you have sent to me and the world is that there are things more important to you than the value of that soldier's life over there in Iraq, or that Iraqi civilian who just got car bombed to death. Because if you voted for Bush, you are saying that you either cared about those lives--just not as much as you cared about other things--or you didn't care.

That is reprehensible to me. That anything could matter more to you than the President of the United States telling a lie that caused people to be killed, is reprehensible to me.

The reason I knew the outcome of the election the moment I saw the announcement that 10 states were slated to approve their homophobic amendments--and Oregon, you broke my heart with number 11 later on--was because the same basic principle is at work here: we as Americans are not ready to stop thinking about ourselves first. We choose based on material immediate concerns like 'wait, I don't want a gay couple in my neighborhood!' or 'if it gets rid of Saddam and makes me safer from terrorism, it's okay by me.' We don't consider how those choices affect those who have to live with them every day. And if we do consider, we just don't care.

I thought more people cared.

America, where is your heart? You voted with your grubby hands, with your levels of adrenalin, with your pancreas. Not your heart. Or your mind.

I'm not sure where that leaves your soul. I last located it at Ground Zero. I am not sure where it's got off to since.

But I think in the next 4 years we just might find out.