Maybe there was a section I missed. Perhaps I read the ballot too perfunctorily, misunderstanding some arcane referendum. Whatever the reason, it has become heartbreakingly clear that unbeknownst to me and millions of other voters, the vote I cast on Election Day was not actually to determine the president, but rather to reappraise the moral direction of our country.
Now, more than a day too late, I realize that the Democrats' strategy for dethroning Bush overlooked one entire front. According to exit polls conducted by CNN, more than half of Bush's supporters cited "morals" as the key factor in their vote, while Kerry's, predictably, did not. Of course, this should come as no surprise, considering the Bush camp's longtime strategy of dividing the country along sectarian lines. Ever since Bush took office by a tenuous margin in 2000, his arch-machinator Karl Rove began devising ways to court the evangelical vote.
In Rove's estimation, roughly 4 million born-again Christians failed to make it to the polls in 2000. Though few outside analysts took his calculation very seriously - Bush, after all, was hardly reticent about flaunting his faith before the first election - the Bush team earnestly undertook a campaign to rouse the Christian right to action. The plan, though laughably simple on the surface, worked better than anyone could have anticipated. By selecting a few issues that resonated with Christian constituents and hammering them incessantly, Bush seemed to give values-oriented Americans exactly what they wanted: a litmus test of the candidates' "character."
No matter how moderate Kerry's avowed stances were on "moral" issues, he inevitably came across as godless and decadent compared to Bush in the eyes of religious Americans. Bush's overwhelming success with born-again Christians prompted commentators such as Matthew Staver of the Liberty Counsel to proclaim, "Marriage, morals and the sanctity of human life were the real winners in this election."
This idea that a conservative victory is somehow a "moral" one is one of the more insidious byproducts of Bush's presidency and one that Democrats should strenuously refute. It rests on the assumption that Republicans have a monopoly on morality and hence can do no wrong. Their deep-seated convictions and values toward conserving the environment, saving human life, preserving dignity and uplifting the poor are seen as inferior and somehow in opposion to Republican probity. Yet this is not because Democrats' values do not arise from religious belief - on the contrary, Christ's teaching properly understood should lead to liberalism. It is rather because the Republicans have redefined morality itself.
Instead of serving as a code of right and wrong that governs behavior, the Republicans' nebulous "morality" is now merely a storehouse for the mores of rural culture. Over the last few decades, Republicans have shrewdly capitalized on middle America's genuine, justifiable resentment of metropolitan domination of their economic, political and intellectual lives. Locking on to ingredients that in some proportion compose rural values has allowed the Republicans to corner their votes while pursuing policies that run patently contrary to the needs of rural Americans. Thus Bush's appeal, despite all his bumbling high-minded demagoguery, can sustain even the most destructive first term in recent memory.
For liberals to survive and move forward in America, it is necessary to understand the roots of this country-city antagonism. Rural voters resent feeling maligned and degraded by a popular culture that glorifies lasciviousness and material wealth, they dislike snobbery and the overweening self-importance of coastal dwellers, and they perceive - with good cause - that America does not appreciate their culture.
The polarization of America along cultural lines is very real, and this divide cannot be surmounted without a conscious effort to reach out to rural voters. Only a basic reassessment of the Democratic Party as a possible vehicle for still-unrealized populist ideals can move us forward toward reconciliation. And, God willing, a swath of blue in the middle.
Benjamin Carlson '07 is the son of a minister.
