Thoughts on the Election
I left the country early Wednesday morning. Not because of the results of the election, but because of a long planned conference speaking engagement in Belize.
It was very strange to spend a week in Central America, with uncertain and irregular internet access, and little ability to follow the news from home for the first 8 days following the election.
Earlier, I had been caught up in the excitement of the exit polls, that initially pointed to a very strong Kerry victory. I ended one post Tuesday afternoon saying “I am so happy.”
However, those hopes were dashed. It turns out that the exit poll data that was first released was raw numbers only, not yet skewed to represent the actual voting population. Once the data had been corrected, the over sampling of women voters would be thrown out, and the exit polls did not provide any smoking gun about a stolen election.
Despite some problems with voter irregularity, and scattered instances of republican cheating, I don’t believe there was any widespread conspiracy to steal the election. There was definitely voter suppression in Ohio, a deliberate attempt to deny minority communities adequate numbers of voting machines, and other obstacles all designed to lower the democratic vote, but these obstacles could have been overcome with a surge in turnout.
In fact, two things really stand out to me about the election. First, we did not turn out as many democratic voters as we had hoped. Although on election day there were suggestions that turnout could reach 120 million, or even 125 million (likely ensuring a Kerry victory) the actual votes seem to suggest a turnout just north of 115 million (59 million for Bush, 56 million for Kerry). So they got out more voters than we did. Second, the Republicans were stunningly successful at turning out their voters.
How this happened is in this amazing piece of information from the Los Angeles Times
“A poll released Tuesday by the Barna Group, which does polling for religious groups, found that born-again Christians voted for Bush over Kerry by a 62%-to-38% margin. The poll also found that although the "born-again" population constituted 38% of Americans, it represented 53% of the votes cast in the election.”
This data suggests a huge underground effort to organize around religion and Christian right communities in a way that overwhelmed democratic efforts to get out union members and single women and minorities.
It is unfathomable to me that Born again Christians could represent 53% of the total electorate. If that is a permanent alignment, we are indeed becoming the Western version of an Islamic theocracy, where the power of the government to enforce religious beliefs on the entire society is unquestioned and unrestrained.
It seems to me that the entire thrust of the Christian right is to enforce its religious dogma in secular society. They want to prohibit women from choosing abortions, and in some cases from even using contraception. They want to prohibit gay couples from gaining state recognition in either marriage or civil unions. They want to prohibit teaching about any type of sexuality to children and teenagers. They oppose use and distribution of condoms. They want to restrict depictions of sex in both public and private media. And above all, they divide the world into the “saved” who have accepted Jesus Christ, and the “other” who have not. There is little respect or recognition of the “other” except as a potential convert to Christ, or as a prop, like the current fascination with the Jews among fundamentalist Christians.
To me this parallels the militant Christianity of the Spaniards, who killed Indians who would not convert. It is a mirror image of those Islamic fundamentalists who ban women from public life and education under religious fatwa’s. It is little different from those radical Israeli Jews who believe god granted them rights to the land, and they will kill and destroy anyone who does not accept their view. It is a religious fundamentalism that feeds off of fear and repression.
This is a threat to American democracy. Our country was founded with a government of checks and balances designed to protect minorities because our ancestors fought against a system where a tyrant held absolute power. It is only because our government was originally designed to protect minorities such as unpopular pamphleteers, people who wanted no part of religion or government, members of unpopular sects and movements that the tremendous expansion of minority rights we have witnessed including votes for non-property owners, women’s suffrage, civil rights, gay rights, and the individual right to privacy has flourished as an expansion of that original intent.
Militant fundamentalism repudiates all this. For fundamentalists, there is no right of a minority to hold a different view. That is the essence of fundamentalism. Fundamentalists live in a pluralistic society, but they don’t accept the tolerant basis of a pluralistic society.
They present the same challenge to democracy that many saw in communism. Although in intent communism was supposed to be a democratic system, the actual practice of democratic centralism negated democracy. Once a decision was made, all members followed the party line. When communists operated within a larger society, this "party line" served to destroy democratic institutions. Communist party members would not accept majority decisions that fell outside the party line, because their loyalty was to the party, not to the larger democratic society as a whole. In a similar way, the loyalty of a fundamentalist is to his or her sectarian belief, not to a larger society in which the fundamentalist is only a part.
So how do we combat this disaster, similar in many ways to the election of religious mullahs in an Islamic society.
We need to do three things.
First, recognize that America is built on a pluralist tradition, and even though they voted heavily, fundamentalists are in fact a minority. Most Americans do not accept their religious view or attitudes.
Second, recognize that all people have a strong need for a moral universe within which to act, and we cannot marginalize fundamentalism unless we confront fundamentalist values with equally strong opposing values. This is where the democratic party had its greatest failure. By mimicking Republicans, but at heart not believing in fundamentalism, the democrats have found themselves arguing for what they don’t believe. How can such hypocrisy radiate strong values.
Third, we must develop and legitimize our pluralistic, tolerant, nurturing values and reach out to all Americans, including fundamentalists and those in red states, with these values.
This does not mean presenting a litany of policy positions designed to stitch together a coalition of interest groups. It means articulating a clear view of the importance of freedom, equality of opportunity, and the role of government in assisting and supporting our aspirations for a better life.
Our parents paid to build the interstate highway system, to fund great universities, to facilitate scientific research throughout this country. Do we squander their investments that have made our lives so much better. Do we say to our children, “sorry, nothing left for you.” Our vision starts with the right of every individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In a pluralistic society, people are going to choose different paths, based on different beliefs.
In a climate of fear, it is hard for people to accept that differences need not be threatening. One of the things we must fight directly is fear in all its forms. Americans are transfixed by fear. Fear of terrorists. Fear of loss of job or income. Fear of loss of health insurance. Fear of loss of retirement. Fear that they cannot afford to pay for their children’s education. Fear of crime. Fear of abduction, rape, murder. In a climate of fear, fundamentalism grows strong. When terror abounds, clinging to a religion or belief can be a refuge and comfort. Our job is to stand up to fear.
The Republicans have elevated management of fear to an art form. Instead of seeing fear as an enemy of happiness, they use fear as the most effective way to exercise power. To the extent that the American people recover their courage and lose their fear, we will win.
So, back to this election. I was so looking forward to “getting my country back” as many of the Dean supporters put it. Now that has not happened, but we do have the seeds of a movement. I am not alone. 55 million people voted to take our country back. Millions worked day and night, raised money, got involved. These brave Americans will not go away, despite the best efforts of the media monopolists to marginalize and diminish them. Let’s concentrate on our values. Once we articulate those correctly, the rest of our path will become clear, whether it takes four years, or a generation.
10:32:52 PM
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