A plague on both your houses

November 8th, 2004 | by aobaoill |

While I agree with Clancy that this is a well-crafted piece of rhetoric, it annoyed me tremendously. And not in a “she’s telling upsetting truths” sense. Here we have, seemingly, a woman who doesn’t want Roe-v-Wade overturned, who believes third trimester abortions are sometimes necessary, who believes that gay marriage should be legal, who doesn’t want the privatisation of social security, who has “friends who would be dead without the food stamps and SSI checks they collect each month,” who “wouldn’t buy an SUV, even if I could pay cash for one,” who “would never cross the picket line” at WalMart if it were unionised, who hates the Patriot acts, who doesn’t want income tax abolished, who has read and been scared by the PNAC essays, who even claims that she “supportive of liberal ideals like fighting for higher wages, stopping outsourcing of jobs, and standing up for the little guy.” And she voted for Bush.
Why? Because Air America – the liberal version of Talk Radio – said bad things about Bush, because many liberals were vociferous in their opposition to Bush, and because Kerry was not sufficiently decisive and ‘principled’ – that is to say simplistic in his principles – in his campaign.
Oh, and one other thing:

I don’t care what Europeans think about me or my country. I learned in high school that living my life with one eye on the opinions of everyone else leads only to unnecessary turmoil and pointless pain. Why didn’t you?

Strange – I thought there were some – at least minor – differences between alienating the opinion of much of the world and not being popular in school. Of course it reflects the individualism underlying much of American society, politics, and culture, but is still astounding.
But back to not feeling Kerry had communicated a clear enough message. For this, perhaps we should blame Kerry’s campaign. They knew who the voters were, their cultural background. The Kerry campaign’s job was to win. They didn’t. But that’s politics, as they say.
But that someone who has thought so much about the issues, who knows the dangers Bush poses, who claimed to engage with the issues thoughtfully, to say she voted for Bush, after all this, because:

“he has values, clearly defined values, and even though I agree with little of what he believes, at least I know what he believes. At least I know that he really does believe in something. At least I know that he will do what he says he will do.”

What does this say about this person, this culture? The cult of leadership – and several people have referenced a This American Life piece about a similar voter – where Hitler would (according to this voter’s logic) be admired because he stood for something is worthy of little but contempt. The voter must hope that ‘stuff will happen’, good or bad it matters not, rather than we take a more nuanced approach to an issue, or wait and deal with an issue on the specifics of the situation. The voter deserves the curse – may you live in interesting times. Such is the return on investment in ‘decisive’ leadership. Good or evil? With us or with the terrorists? Interesting that the author decries the simplicity of the Red/Blue divide, and yet rewards the dichotomous, ‘decisive’ rhetoric of this increasingly frightening regime.
As a European, my opinion doesn’t matter, of course. I’m surprised the author even cares about the opinions of ‘Yankees’, of Kerry voters, of doubters. [I, for my part, would note the fluidity of online identity for so many, especially someone who sets up a new (anonymized) weblog for such an essay.] But even if you don’t think my voice matters (and I’m too annoyed/worried/angry to put much effort into debunking the argument piece by piece) you could, at least, read this fisking.

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