Our problem, if it is one, is that we had hope. We cared. We believed what's right would prevail. That justice would emerge to vindicate us. That everything we knew and believed to be right in this world would be realized. Unfortunately, passion blinds people. We underestimated the near absolute power thrust upon those willing to take advantage of the darkest elements of our souls. We didn't fully account for the depravity of the opposition. We didn't want to. We thought we'd win because we were right.
You know, the Joseph Goerbels quotes rang true to us, but they only drove us to work harder. They only made us want it more. They made us believe even more that good would prevail. Well, that wasn't enough. In Nazi Germany and bad economic times, they made it about the Jews. In the Arab world, with massive devastation among the masses, they make it about Israel. In the nineteen fifties they made it about inter-racial coupling. In 2004, they won an election because they took OHIO. A state that lost more jobs than any other state. A state that shared a disproportionate burden in a failed war. A state that last week, was favoring Kerry in every single poll. They took OHIO by telling these people forget the war that is killing your children, forget the economy that is losing you jobs, forget the polices that have hurt OHIO more than any other state, and fear gay marriage. Fear the homosexual marriage that will ensue if Kerry wins victory. Fear the union between a man, and another man. Fear that OHIO.
The SUSA poll, along with every other poll, showed us up about 2% among likely voters one week before the election. So consistent was the lead that some of us took OHIO for granted. How could a state so hard hit, not be a winner for us? A new SUSA poll came out on Sunday. It confirmed a slew of other polls that showed Bush making sudden gains. The internals of that SUSA poll painted a clear and stark picture. Social conservatives had abandoned the Kerry campaign in a massive exodus, to the tune of 5 full percentage points.
Why? Why the shift? Why a similar shift in Michigan? Because Republicans made phone calls, and made the election about gay marriage. They might as well have made it about the Jews or the blacks. People stopped voting their interest, and started voting their biases. That is how they won.
These are people who made a war hero seems like a murderer, and a draft dodger seem like a war hero. Who made a liar seem like an honest man, and an honest man seem like a liar. Who made a man who dedicated his life to service, seem like a do-nothing, and a life-long incompetent seem like a success. They used fear, hate and deception to manipulate a vulnerable populace. It is not a new formula.
The message they want to send is clear: nothing matters. Nothing has any meaning anymore, because objective truth no longer has any meaning.
Don't believe them. We must take solace: we will win the long run. We believe in evolution, and evolution takes its time. In the end what's right will always prevail over what's wrong. It's what people like us must believe. It's what the world needs us to do. It would be so easy to not care, because like I said, it seems to some like caring is where we went wrong. But we have to keep believing. For all the times in history there seemed to be no hope, there were people like us. Never were we able to avert disaster at first swipe, but always eventually. Always because of people like us.