So. What do we do now? It's the question everyone is asking.
After checking the news this morning, nothing about my world physically changed, but I could suddenly feel a dark presence pressing down on the roof of my house.
I know that no one is red or blue, but right now I am feeling like there is absolutely no way, never, ever, that I will find anything nice to say to someone who voted for Bush. If it's true that 51% of my fellow citizens want to live under a theocracy where morals are legislated rather then held personally, in a country that is despised by the rest of the world for its arrogance, then maybe it's time to split into two. I'm halfway serious. Wouldn't I be much happier in a country where the right to abortion was not always in question, and where we could devote more resources to providing alternatives to abortion than to constantly having to defend Roe v. Wade? Where my gay friends could get married (or not) and no one would bat an eye? Wouldn't these Republicans be happier living in a country where every school day started with a prayer? Where the Consitution was replaced with the Ten Commandments?
I know that won't happen anytime soon. But then what are my options? I can't sit patiently and wait for the Republicans to leave the country. I could leave the country. Go to Canada or some enlightened European country. But dammit, America belongs to me too! How can I coexist with this other half? This excerpt from an essay by Janet Sullivan does a good job of expressing my feelings right now:
"By the time I had gone to bed, the chorus of pundits had fixed on a single tune, as they always do, and remarkably quickly, too. (Do they watch one another's feeds in the green room?) They had dusted off the old theme that the Democrats need to "reach out" more to the "heartland." Reach out? How, exactly? Forget that these folks blindly ignored all objective reality -- and their own best economic and national-security interests -- and voted for Bush. Look what they did at the Senate level. In Kentucky, they refused to use even basic sanity as a litmus test, and reelected a guy with apparent late-stage dementia; in Oklahoma, they tapped a fellow who wants to execute doctors who perform abortions, who was sued for sterilizing a woman against her will, who pled guilty to Medicaid fraud, and who largely opposes federal subsidies, even for his own state; in Louisiana, they embraced a man who has made back-door deals with David Duke and who was revealed to have had a long-running affair with a prostitute; in South Carolina, they went with a guy who thinks all gay teachers should be fired; and in Alaska, they reelected a woman who was appointed by her father to the job after a spectacularly undistinguished career as an obscure state senator. And compared with the rest of the GOP Class of '04, she's the freaking prom queen. These are the stellar elected officials that the "heartland" has foisted on the rest of us.
I'm angry and depressed right now. I have Republicans in my family, and they are good people and I love them. But I DO NOT UNDERSTAND how a sane and reasonable person could decide to vote for Bush. Or Bunning, or Coburn, or any of these other psychos.
I know that America needs to heal after this brutal election season. But I don't feel capable of any reasoned or constructive discourse at the moment.
After checking the news this morning, nothing about my world physically changed, but I could suddenly feel a dark presence pressing down on the roof of my house.
I know that no one is red or blue, but right now I am feeling like there is absolutely no way, never, ever, that I will find anything nice to say to someone who voted for Bush. If it's true that 51% of my fellow citizens want to live under a theocracy where morals are legislated rather then held personally, in a country that is despised by the rest of the world for its arrogance, then maybe it's time to split into two. I'm halfway serious. Wouldn't I be much happier in a country where the right to abortion was not always in question, and where we could devote more resources to providing alternatives to abortion than to constantly having to defend Roe v. Wade? Where my gay friends could get married (or not) and no one would bat an eye? Wouldn't these Republicans be happier living in a country where every school day started with a prayer? Where the Consitution was replaced with the Ten Commandments?
I know that won't happen anytime soon. But then what are my options? I can't sit patiently and wait for the Republicans to leave the country. I could leave the country. Go to Canada or some enlightened European country. But dammit, America belongs to me too! How can I coexist with this other half? This excerpt from an essay by Janet Sullivan does a good job of expressing my feelings right now:
"By the time I had gone to bed, the chorus of pundits had fixed on a single tune, as they always do, and remarkably quickly, too. (Do they watch one another's feeds in the green room?) They had dusted off the old theme that the Democrats need to "reach out" more to the "heartland." Reach out? How, exactly? Forget that these folks blindly ignored all objective reality -- and their own best economic and national-security interests -- and voted for Bush. Look what they did at the Senate level. In Kentucky, they refused to use even basic sanity as a litmus test, and reelected a guy with apparent late-stage dementia; in Oklahoma, they tapped a fellow who wants to execute doctors who perform abortions, who was sued for sterilizing a woman against her will, who pled guilty to Medicaid fraud, and who largely opposes federal subsidies, even for his own state; in Louisiana, they embraced a man who has made back-door deals with David Duke and who was revealed to have had a long-running affair with a prostitute; in South Carolina, they went with a guy who thinks all gay teachers should be fired; and in Alaska, they reelected a woman who was appointed by her father to the job after a spectacularly undistinguished career as an obscure state senator. And compared with the rest of the GOP Class of '04, she's the freaking prom queen. These are the stellar elected officials that the "heartland" has foisted on the rest of us.
"Reach out" to these voters? Yeah. Then boil your hand till it's sterilized."
Not to mention that 11 states voted to DENY rights to some of their citizens.I'm angry and depressed right now. I have Republicans in my family, and they are good people and I love them. But I DO NOT UNDERSTAND how a sane and reasonable person could decide to vote for Bush. Or Bunning, or Coburn, or any of these other psychos.
I know that America needs to heal after this brutal election season. But I don't feel capable of any reasoned or constructive discourse at the moment.
Comments