God's Own Party has won the mandate that eluded it in 2004, and I do not have enough vomit to adequately express how I feel about that. Americans were offered a stark choice between a candidate that embodies what makes their country great (patriotism, tolerance) and a candidate who represents all their country's ugliness (fear, puritanism), and by a margin of 3.6 million or so votes, they chose to stay down in the mire. Nothing--not electoral fraud, Diebold, OBL, or the Right Wing Noise Machine--can be blamed now except for the cupidity and wrong-headedness of the American electorate. "With a bigger majority," Tom DeLay is reported to have enthused, "we can do even more exciting things." Indeed.
Perhaps now is the time to remind readers that, in 1972, Nixon body-slammed McGovern with a blowout landslide that makes even yesterday's numbers look pitiful: 60.7% of the popular vote, every state except lonely suffering Massachusetts (and DC). Two years later, he scurried out of the White House onto a helicopter in utter disgrace, and his VP was in jail. In a sense, for the 55 million Americans--Blue and Red Staters alike--who hoped that Kerry would deliver them from their long national nightmare, Election Day marked the beginning, rather than the end, of the struggle. They're going to need all the help they can get.
Perhaps now is the time to remind readers that, in 1972, Nixon body-slammed McGovern with a blowout landslide that makes even yesterday's numbers look pitiful: 60.7% of the popular vote, every state except lonely suffering Massachusetts (and DC). Two years later, he scurried out of the White House onto a helicopter in utter disgrace, and his VP was in jail. In a sense, for the 55 million Americans--Blue and Red Staters alike--who hoped that Kerry would deliver them from their long national nightmare, Election Day marked the beginning, rather than the end, of the struggle. They're going to need all the help they can get.
