What is there to say?

America has spoken.

Record voter turnouts, by some estimates the highest percentage since 1960, with all votes tabulated without help of litigation or The Supreme Court. America has overwhelmingly endorsed our sitting President and signed on for another four year tour with the Bush/Cheney War Machine.

The “Red States”, that large evangelical Christian swath across the middle of this country, has carried the day. The deciding factor for Bush supporters turned out not to be the economy, the war on terror, Iraq, the environment or health care, but rather the inanely nebulous concept of “moral values”. What the FUCK are “moral values”?!?! Morals, I get. Morality. Knowing right from wrong and acting accordingly. Values, I get. An ingrained set of beliefs and ideas about general concepts, in this case relating more to ideological/political doctrines with relation to social beliefs. Something absurd like 78% of the people polled that listed “moral values” as their primary reason for voting for their candidate voted for the President. People voting for Kerry were relatively split among caring most about the other issues mentioned above.

Here’s the rub, reader: Each of these other concepts is concrete: economic strength and development (or lack thereof) can be quantitatively measured by lackluster GDP growth and rising interest rates; health care can be measured by rising prescription drug costs and the growing number of uninsured American workers and children; the war in Iraq can be measured by the American soldiers dying each day in a war fought for cultural, financial and ultimately empirical motives.

“Moral values”, on the other hand, are entirely unquantifiable. There are no facts and figures and graphs and tallies to enumerate a President’s or candidate’s value system, their convictions and their beliefs on issues like gay marriage, stem cell research, a woman’s right to choose. In fact, the only real measures of these issues are rhetoric and political actions, words and deeds, and that is where the war was won by Bush and lost by Kerry. Say what you will about either candidate, but the President, after a supremely awful first term strictly by the numbers, had only one card to play: “I’m a good guy, I’m a lot like you, I believe what you believe, and I won’t go changing my mind about things.” And he played that card like a champ, never letting his message become bogged down by inconsequential things like facts and intelligence (political intelligence, not native intelligence…although the converse may be true as well).

Meanwhile, Kerry kept hammering away with his message of change, his message of hope and optimism and advancement, never once realizing that this great red swath doesn’t WANT change, doesn’t WANT advancement. “America’s Heartland” wants things to stay as close to the same as possible. End the war? I guess so, but not if it means we lose the war. Nationalized health care? Not if I have to pay for it. The environment? The economy? It’s not THAT bad. We have air to breathe and food on the table. Sure it could be better, but it’s not as bad as it COULD be.

Now, don’t get me wrong. This is not to say that a candidate should pander (which Kerry did plenty of—I mean, what self-respecting Sox fan would kiss Yankee ass like he did?) or dumb down his message to appeal to the lowest common denominator. On the contrary, a great leader is able to convince the public not to stand pat. He must convince the public that his vision is worth their sacrifice, that advancement is the only viable option to prevent regression, that you must move forward or you can only move back. Franklin Roosevelt did this by asking for sacrifice in the face of Depression and War. John Kennedy did this by promising a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Even George W. did this after 9/11 by essentially telling America to buck up, shake it off, and get back to work.

John Kerry could not and would not inspire the electorate to see his vision, if he even had one worth envisioning. John Kerry could not even convince the half of the population that voted for Al Gore four years ago that he had a better plan, a loftier vision, a proposal worth sacrificing for, than the manipulative demagogue that has been in office for the last four years. The Democratic party, enraged by the stolen election of 2000 and enlivened by the grassroots optimism of Howard Dean, tried to unite behind the one candidate that they were lead to believe had a chance of defeating Bush. Little did they realize that they were in fact nominating the one candidate that could never defeat Bush. Kerry was too soft on Bush, too proud or noble or above the fray to attack the President on the Great Lie he propagated on the people, too afraid to lose the precious swing voters that support the war in Iraq to take a stand against it. He allowed himself to be branded with the Scarlet “L” of Liberalism without reaping any of the benefits, namely playing up the prospects of increased social spending on integral government programs, better job creation, education and health initiatives, and advancement towards a more just and equitable society.

By the end of the campaign (and truly since Day One), John Kerry was a great toothless giant, identified not by his ideas but by his opposition to Bush’s, not by his beliefs but by how he differed from the righteous indignation of the Administration. John Kerry, and in fact the modern Democratic party itself, has become a ghost of its proud, strong former self, a shadow minority defined only in relation to the GOP, which has, since the Reagan Revolution, morphed into the party of progress, the party of change, the party of big ideas and the will to make it happen.

But the real tragedy of the 2004 election, the most painful and demoralizing aspect of today’s electoral process, is that John Kerry and George Bush are apparently the best choices that American politics could produce. Politics has been simplified, segmented and boiled down to the point where a slogan-spouting retarded cowboy and a regional finalist in the Most Boring Man on the Planet competition are the only two men worthy of the highest office in the land, the only politicians worth holding up as representatives of their party. Gone are the Roosevelts, the Kennedys, the Reagans, the men of vision, whether misguided or not, who can unite the country. We are left with hollow shells, vessels for partisan ideologies with no substance, no vigor, nothing to speak to the vast, differing populace of this country except inane yammering about swift boats and national guard records and windsurfing and DUIs.

In re-electing this President, America has signed its own death warrant as a sympathetic and respected international superpower. America has legitimized the most corrupt and deceptive administration since Nixon’s. America has invited a new generation of politicians to employ populist rhetoric while continuing to lie to and manipulate the people in ways that would make Huey Long and Dick Daley blush. There is a lot to love about this country. America is still the land I love and the greatest triumph of democracy in history, the shining beacon by which all other modern societies are judged. But it’s times like these, the naïve moments where Americans vote with their fear rather than their hope, that I have to wonder: Where exactly is this country coming from and more importantly, where the fuck is it going?

See you in four years.

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