Reposted from my blog at
Three Guys:
I feel like I am in grief -- if not for America, then for an ideal of America, one which last night I believed and which now I have lost.
It is true that in 1972 Richard Nixon won in a landslide. It is true that in 1974 he resigned in disgrace. There remains impeachment, resignation, the many scandals brewing, the sword of Damacles over Bush's head, our foot upon his throat. There remains a chance that we can make Bush and the Republicans pay a political price for what they has done to us, punish them for the many ways that they have betrayed the public trust.
There are even, yes, those who will say this was the right election to lose, that now the chickens will come home to roost where they belong, with the Republicans, that now the true blame for Iraq and all the many disasters of the last four years will come down squarely and decisively upon their heads. That perhaps now, finally, at long last, they have all the rope they need to hang themselves.
I do not stand with those people. But I pray that they are right.
I remain as convinced as I have ever been that when the history books are written, the disastrous presidency of George W. Bush will go down in history as the worst that we have ever had. I believe the long-term factors point in our direction. I believe we can and will win in 2008, as far off as that seems. I believe in a better tomorrow, though it is not yet here today.
So yes, as they are saying, all is not lost. The world continues to turn. Do not despairTM. We shall prevailTM.
All those things are true.
But I find it impossible not to despair. It is impossible not to feel complete and utter disillusionment with a country that would choose this empty suit over a man of principle, that would choose to continue disaster and disaster, throw good money after bad, rather than ever admit that it was wrong -- disgust for a country whose citizens would rather prove how much they hate homosexuals than try to improve the welfare of their neighbors.
I find the results of this election a devastating indictment of our democracy itself, that a man who plainly does not deserve election to the most sacred office in our country and the most powerful position in the world is nonethless spun, lied, fluffed, and massaged back for another four years by the deceptive, failed, nihilistic propaganda organ we call "corporate media."
Were these results legitimate? Did voter suppression and Diebold put Bush over the top? Was, as so many are already wondering, the fix in? The sad fact is we'll never know; the Republicans have made sure of that. The greatest democracy in the world has an electoral system so opaque, so unaccountable, so unverifiable that its results can simply never be trusted.
There will be those who will never accept these results, and as time passes we may all yet find ourselves among their numbers.
What do you say to people when the very instrument of their democracy has been corrupted? How do you tell them to trust in anything you say or do again?
But we don't know. It may be that this election was stolen. But it seems far more likely that this man -- this simple, stupid, short-sighted man -- really was the choice of more Americans.
I honestly don't know which would be worse: finding out for sure that the shocking upsets of this election were manufactured by the GOP, that it was quite literally stolen -- or finding out instead that all that extra turnout, all those long lines, all that hope was just to get this destructive idiot back in power for another four years. That so many Americans would rather cast a vote against homosexuals and Iraqis and "godless liberal atheists" than cast one vote to try and make the world a better place to live.
As I said last night, if we have truly and honestly selected George Bush to be our president for another four years, it is nothing short of a national disgrace.
I don't know what will happen next. I don't know if I'll stay to witness the devastation, or try to fight it, or if I'll simply unplug from the nation at large and focus on the smaller, better, hopeful things in life -- or if it might not be better in the end for those of us of good heart and sound mind to leave this country to its deprivations.
Is an America that would choose George W. Bush worth fighting for?
I don't know how we can overcome this deep well of ignorance, prejudice, and blind irrationality and make this country decent once again.
I know there have been dark times before. I know that there's been setbacks, and that there will someday be victories. But at this moment, at this wretched moment, this election feels like nothing so much as a sudden, unexpected death.
The America I thought I knew is gone, if it ever existed at all. And that is a bitter, bitter pill.