Bush’s recent (and first-time) win of the presidency should come as a surprise to no one. It has validated the belief of many that America has gotten what it deserves, even after enduring some of the most horribly abusive foreign and domestic policies in American history.
The fact that it was even a close call at all is a damning condemnation of those supposedly opposed to the Bush B#######. After four years of lies, murder, back-room deals, dead soldiers, poor education, a faulty economy, reduced civil liberties, increasing crime rates and racial intolerance he still managed to capture the popular and electoral count. This is sad, if for no other reason than the fact that so many people are blind to the truth and simply believe and hear what they want to believe and hear, even in the face of mounting impeachment-worthy lies and offenses. We couldn’t even muster support for the lesser of two evils, which would be laughable if it weren’t so sad. What an embarrassing time to be an American.
This election was won on fear–fear of a phantom terror menace and of anything that could potentially hamper our "way of life" in America–whatever that is. Now, without constraints and unchecked, Bush can continue to wage war globally, using U.S. military might to bring the "gift of freedom" of his God to the world. War on who? Why, war on all who aren’t like him and his ilk, that’s who. War on women, war on people of color, war on those who don’t practice his twisted sense of "Christianity," war on those who don’t share his sexual preference, war on children, and war on the less fortunate, the elderly and the infirm.
Now the left, and democrats in particular, will have to take a long, hard look at themselves. What went wrong? This was not a stolen election. It was not a hijacking, mugging or a mistake. The left dropped the ball, not so much for lack of trying (especially with the youth vote), but for backing John Kerry–a weaker version of Bush–in the first place. Maybe now the party that is supposed to represent the values of the mainstream left will actually adopt those values and not ignore its own constituency in an attempt to appeal to a more conservative base. Indeed, many at odds with Bush’s illegal wars were left feeling disillusioned by the fact that Kerry, his main opposition, had very similar stances with regards to his overseas agenda.
An election this close must make us take pause. Maybe, after all, we aren’t nearly as far along as a country as we would like to believe. And while it’s true that for tens of millions of Americans, Bush will never be our president, all we can really do now is apologize to the rest of the world for validating this simpleton and his racist imperialist policies–and brace ourselves for the worst still yet to come. Apparently, we must hit some sort of new low between now and 2008.
Most disturbing of all is that George Bush will have the chance to tilt the supreme court firmly to the right and leave a lasting imprint on the US’s social and political fabric. Three of the nine supreme court justices could well step down in the next few years. Chief justice William Rehnquist, John Paul Stevens, and Sandra Day O’Connor will all probably step down, as two are over eighty years of age and O’Connor, 74, has openly expressed interest in wrapping up her service.
Keep in mind that these are lifelong appointments, and that Bush wouldn’t have been selected for president in the first place had the supreme court voted in 2000 to allow the recount to continue in that presidential election (Gore would’ve won).
In the coming years, the supreme court is expected to consider some of the most divisive social issues in the US: private property rights and government land seizure, gay marriage and partial-birth abortion. A conservative court can all but guarantee that the outcome will be less-than-favorable for those of us who value fairness, justice and liberty.
Yes, America has gotten what it deserves.
