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Them Heavy People
Nov. 3rd, 2004 08:09 pmObviously, knowing most of my Americans online, via LiveJournal or from Usenet, I had a skewed impression of how many people were actually in favour of Bush. Which is to say, nobody on my Friends list whatsoever. Of course, I used to read derekjames's xanga blog--he was part of the NaNoWriMo Guerrilla Rebellion three years ago when I missed the signup deadline, he always seemed an intelligent person, and he defended his right-wing positions quite rationally. He never seemed an extreme rabid Republican, but I could see him voting for Bush. (And according to his current journal, he did. Does that make him stupid, evil, or wrongheaded?)
The thing is that it seems very strongly to be an almost "Two Solitudes" split right down the middle of the country. Especially when you look at the electoral map--blue from Maryland and Pennsylvania up to Maine, blue on the "left coast", mostly blue around the Great Lakes, and red everywhere else.
It's not as clear-cut as that, I realize. I would be surprised if there was any state in the U.S. where either candidate got as much as 2/3 of the vote. And having a 51/48 split in the popular vote means that Democrats are only a minority by the slimmest of margins. And yet, the U.S. now more than likely has a Republican president, a Republican-dominated Senate and Congress, and probably a Supreme Court soon if it hasn't happened already. For a 2-3% dominance over the country, or at least its voting segment.
Of course, it's possible that the entire non-voting portion of the U.S. population is actually Republican, too. Self-selecting by voting does not necessarily a representative sample make.
I remember an article a few months ago about American Idol, where it said that instead of voting for a contestant, people should get to vote against other contestants. This would eliminate, it was theorized, the unbalancing effects of rabid autodialing fan clubs who would vote for Kelly Clarkson(or whoever)regardless of the actual performances of the evening. Admittedly, in a two-party system it doesn't make much difference, but it seemed like people weren't voting for Kerry as much as they were voting against Bush. Were people voting for Bush actually voting against Kerry? I'm not likely to find any of them on here, so it will have to remain a theoretical question for now.
Of course, it's entirely possible Bush is not the Satan or Antichrist he's been painted to be. Maybe the U.S. won't end up in World War III with the Muslim world before 2008, and nobody will nuke any of the next four Super Bowls.
Otherwise, the best we can hope for is a repeat of the fate of Nixon. Cheney resigning in disgrace over Halliburton, replaced by, I don't know, Schwarzenegger or somebody, and then Bush himself impeached for covering up election irregularities and resigning from office. But I'm sure they've learned something from the past thirty years, so probably not.
In conclusion, remember the maxim: we are critical of evidence that contradicts our own beliefs, but not critical of evidence that supports it. Which is why it's interesting, challenging, and often threatening to read intelligent people who disagree with you, because they can point out flaws in your own logic.
The thing is that it seems very strongly to be an almost "Two Solitudes" split right down the middle of the country. Especially when you look at the electoral map--blue from Maryland and Pennsylvania up to Maine, blue on the "left coast", mostly blue around the Great Lakes, and red everywhere else.
It's not as clear-cut as that, I realize. I would be surprised if there was any state in the U.S. where either candidate got as much as 2/3 of the vote. And having a 51/48 split in the popular vote means that Democrats are only a minority by the slimmest of margins. And yet, the U.S. now more than likely has a Republican president, a Republican-dominated Senate and Congress, and probably a Supreme Court soon if it hasn't happened already. For a 2-3% dominance over the country, or at least its voting segment.
Of course, it's possible that the entire non-voting portion of the U.S. population is actually Republican, too. Self-selecting by voting does not necessarily a representative sample make.
I remember an article a few months ago about American Idol, where it said that instead of voting for a contestant, people should get to vote against other contestants. This would eliminate, it was theorized, the unbalancing effects of rabid autodialing fan clubs who would vote for Kelly Clarkson(or whoever)regardless of the actual performances of the evening. Admittedly, in a two-party system it doesn't make much difference, but it seemed like people weren't voting for Kerry as much as they were voting against Bush. Were people voting for Bush actually voting against Kerry? I'm not likely to find any of them on here, so it will have to remain a theoretical question for now.
Of course, it's entirely possible Bush is not the Satan or Antichrist he's been painted to be. Maybe the U.S. won't end up in World War III with the Muslim world before 2008, and nobody will nuke any of the next four Super Bowls.
Otherwise, the best we can hope for is a repeat of the fate of Nixon. Cheney resigning in disgrace over Halliburton, replaced by, I don't know, Schwarzenegger or somebody, and then Bush himself impeached for covering up election irregularities and resigning from office. But I'm sure they've learned something from the past thirty years, so probably not.
In conclusion, remember the maxim: we are critical of evidence that contradicts our own beliefs, but not critical of evidence that supports it. Which is why it's interesting, challenging, and often threatening to read intelligent people who disagree with you, because they can point out flaws in your own logic.
