I was pondering the full impact of this election, and I began to realize something, something I hope you will share with others.
Americans sometimes hail the US as the world's greatest democracy. As I've mentioned in other diaries and comments, I'm a UK citizen and resident, and me and many other non-Americans would at times question such assertions. But constitutional law debates aside, there is a sense in which those assertions are true; the sheer impact that the results of the American democratic process have the world over. The US president wields power unmatched by any other national leader, with the ability to influence hundreds of millions of lives both within and beyond America’s borders. Only US voters get a say in who wields that power and to what ends, even though they are not the only ones subject to it, which gives Americans a sacred duty both to your own nation and to the world.
I don't expect all American voters to take into account the broad implications of their votes. Americans will vote this year based on the effect on their family, on their health and their financial future. On their values and beliefs. On their fears about terrorism and crime, and their hopes for improvement and change. When I vote and when people in the other democracies of the world vote, we consider the same things for ourselves. But never doubt the ultimate power of your votes.
Eight years ago in Florida, events transpired that remain controversial to this day. I believe, like most on this site, that there was wrongdoing and the election rightfully won by Gore may well have been stolen. But history is history, and the verdict in Bush vs Gore means we will never know for sure. So let's take the official count at face value. Bush beat Gore in Florida by 537 votes, thus handing him the 25 electoral votes he needed for victory. At the time and still today, people marveled at how such a small number of votes in Florida could overrule Gore's popular vote win and swing the entire election to Bush. But they did much more than that.
Like I said above, those 537 Floridians couldn't have been expected to take into account all the possible implications of their votes, and they certainly couldn't have been expected to read the future. I'm sure those 537 last minute Bush voters agonized before they cast their ballots. I'm sure some were tricked by Republican propaganda and regretted their decisions later. And they were exercising their democratic right, just as every Gore voter was doing. That is why I do not blame a single one of them. But nevertheless, this is the impact their votes had:
-Those 537 voters elected a government that would, only ten months later, fail to prevent the slaughter of 3,000 of their fellow citizens on the streets of the New York and Washington D.C.
-Those 537 voters elected a government that would, two and a half years later, invade Iraq on false pretences and initiate the greatest foreign policy blunder in recent US history, killing over 4,000 US/Coalition soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis
-Those 537 voters elected a government that would also neglect the war in Afghanistan and fail to capture the man who killed those 3,000 citizens
-Those 537 voters elected a government that would, only four months later, allow global warming to go unabated by refusing to implement the Kyoto Protocol
-Those 537 voters elected a government that would, three and a half years later, refuse to show America's moral authority to confront mass genocide in Darfur, even on the tenth anniversary of the slaughter in Rwanda
Those are just five of the impacts on the world that 537 average people in Florida had, not counting many other events around the world and many more in the US. To anyone who can't accept my "take Florida 2000 at face value" point, the fragile margins in other states (IA, NM, NH, OH, WI, OR, NV) in both 2000 and 2004 are just as relevant and just as frightening.
So just remember this, and remember to tell as many other people as you can, for the good of all Americans and all people everywhere. When you are voting, remember the power of ballot you hold in your hand. We can't know whose votes and how many and in what states will make the difference between an Obama Administration and a McCain Administration. And worse still, we can't know what could befall the US and the world under a McCain Administration, just as the 537 couldn't know what would befall the world under a Bush Administration. Iraq is in flames and Bin Laden is free because those people were swayed by the Bush-Rove machine. But that same machine is mobilizing again, and it must be beaten by the movement for change.
That is why Barack Obama is fighting. That is why all Democrats must fight with him. And that is why it is the duty of every Obama supporter to guide all those who are undecided to make the right decision, and get them to the polls on November 4th.
Thanks for reading.