I think I am with nearly everybody at this University when I say that I bemoan the reelection of President George W. Bush. And yet I cannot condone, as a response, this wave of rampant anti-Americanism.
The man won. Fair and square. Took the popular vote too. Feels like a punch in the gut, but what can you say? This is democracy. Which, I think, is something we forget.
See, I do not have a lot of patience for people who take themselves out of this country verbally, as if they had shares only in the parts of our politics they agree with. What is democracy, after all, but politics beyond the singular self? When we allow the majority the voice, we allow that it may not agree with us and that this is OK. Democracy, as Jesus puts it - a reference George W. Bush would surely enjoy but which, you should know, at the moment comes from a Jew - is saying, in the direction of that which we would not wish to happen: "Oh my electorate, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will it, but as thou wilt." (Slightly modified from Matthew 26:39.) When we allow things like choice and freedom, we allow that those choices may not always be the ones that we, individually, would make.
This game was not always played for such high stakes. The worst thing Bush has done, even more than making it 10 times more likely that we'll all be blown to crap, is to ruin politics in America. Anyone remember 2000? It was just as close, but for a different reason. Nobody gave a damn who won. Now we have the same result, but the two apathetic bodies have been replaced with armed camps.
Bush's greatest crime lies in this polarization of the American public, which he achieved by moralizing what was previously a gray-area political structure. Good vs. Evil, depending on your orientation. Most of us here now consider Republicans to be the evil side of that equation, which, if nothing else, is unfair to historical Republicanism.
Just imagine what would have happened had McCain won the Republican nomination. I don't know how different things would be, but they would be different. At the least, it seems likely that we would still have two political parties in this country. Not one and one, but two. So yes, I say, look at things now, but remember, please: This is not the way it should be, nor the way it has been. How quickly things change. But how quickly they change back. Don't forget 2000! And don't forget 2008.
Here's the real question. What is America? We get swept up in this stuff and forget. We pretend it's the president, or the president's army, but really, it's us. America: (n.) that nation comprised of people known as Americans. It's me writing this column, or you reading it, or those guys throwing a football on the Main Green, or those ones who aren't because they're studying, trying to make the grade, get a job, get a life, support themselves. Leave America? What are we talking about?
Here's the one thing that everyone, on either side, can say now of any value: This is our country, and we're sticking by her. Not the president, necessarily. But the citizens. If you're a Democrat, then no, you don't like what's happening in our power structure. You don't like what's going on. But are you seriously going to take your ball and go home? I don't know about the rest of you, but from my side of things, the answer is a resounding no.
We are citizens of a government founded upon civic debate, centering on issues in a constant state of flux, and this is something that happened to the nation, not just to the people who wanted it. Hell no, we are not going anywhere.
We are Americans, too. Democrats gave the president hell until he got elected. What are they going to do now? Well, if they're real Democrats, they're going to give the president hell. They will remember that 49 percent of the country was for their side and that America needs their voices desperately for the sake of anyone whose rights they see the Bush White House trampling upon.
Democrats everywhere must keep talking. And the Republicans are going to keep talking back. They damn well should, too, because they're also citizens, and they'll make some good points. Along with some crazy and dangerous ones, which is something they don't have a monopoly on either. Because this is not me vs. you, nor us vs. them, but us trying to do the best we can, as well as we can figure out.
America, again, is not whoever the president happens to be. It is this place we all live in - disunited, perhaps, but real. This country did nothing but make its choice, which is its right. If we don't like it, we get another chance in four years. Go to Canada? You can go if you want. I'm going to stay here. And I'm going to tell everyone who wants to mess with whatever it is that I choose to believe in that this is my country, I love it, and I am not letting it go without one hell of a fight.
Andrew Tobolowsky '08 plays Ray Charles in "Ray."
