Let me get this straight. After losing the most important election in my lifetime, we are now all supposed to join hands and support the president.
Dubya says he needs us, the disaffected and disenchanted. In his last words before riding off into obscurity, Kerry told us much the same. And all the wise pundits on TV and at the New York Times are saying it, too: We must all unite for the good of the country.
Well, unite this!
The Right’s idea of unity is a one-way street. When a ton of schmucks tells us that, with kids dying in Iraq and people out of work, their number one-issue is "moral values," there’s not much room for unity. Let’s face it, moral values is the new code for banning abortion and denying gays the rights the rest of us enjoy. So all we have to do is sell out women and gays, and the rednecks and right-wing religious zealots will like us.
You know what? Even then the solid Republican South would not vote for a candidate from the North. Add Northerners to the list of people these folks would like to see disappear off the face of the earth — a list that includes blacks, Jews, feminists and liberals.
Hey, it’s no accident that the South has become solidly Republican. Let’s not sugarcoat it. The reason dates directly back to the Civil Rights Act. That’s when the South decided it was more at home with the skin color of the Republican Party.
Please let’s not make bigotry respectable just because a bunch of people voted their fear. The Republican Party has been living off fear ever since I can remember. They do fear better than us. For 50 years, it was fear of Communists under every bed. After 9/11, it became fear of terrorism.
But through it all, the party has become home base to those who fear social change and think they can turn back the clock. Gays coming out of the closet and asserting their rights, women demanding equality in the workplace … Instead of dealing and adapting to social change, the president and his party have offered a safe haven for those who are plain scared of the unfamiliar.
Afraid of evolution? Well, we’ll teach creationism, too — as if that is also scientifically valid. Don’t like the term "partnerships?" Well, in Texas they’re just going to make sure that the word is never mentioned in textbooks instead of marriage.
Look at the two kooks the Republicans just elected to the Senate. The new senator from South Carolina is a guy who thinks gays shouldn’t be allowed to teach in the public schools. He feels the same about unwed mothers. The new Republican senator from Oklahoma believes that girls should be escorted to the restroom in schools because of "rampant lesbianism." Not only can’t we respect these views, we sure as hell are not going to unify behind them.
Here’s the problem: With Dubya and the Christian conservatives, it’s my way or the highway. We are the ones who are willing to live and let live. That is the essential difference between us. They would allow the government in our bedrooms. They want to regulate what we see on TV or in the movies. They want to return to the social hypocrisy of the ’50s, when unpleasantness was swept under the rug.
How can we respect your views when you want to force them upon the rest of us?
Democrats tried the political unity thing with Dubya at the outset of his first term and he burned them. Ted Kennedy worked with him to help pass "No Child Left Behind" only to find out the president had no intention of fully funding the program. In case you didn’t notice it, Dubya wound up using Teddy’s name to scare voters during the debates.
Thinking the president needed the authority to invade Iraq to force Saddam to disarm, the Democrats fell into line and passed the resolution. We now know how that turned out.
Arlen Specter already found out how receptive his party is to reality. Specter made a gaffe (a columnist once described a Washington gaffe as when a politician inadvertently tells the truth). Specter, who was slated to become head of the powerful judiciary subcommittee, blurted out that it would be virtually impossible to overturn Roe v. Wade without a revolution. Therefore, he predicted, no nominee would make it to the Supreme Court who has those views. The Right went ballistic and, at this writing, Specter may be exiled to an island for lepers and non-believers.
The Dark Age of politics has descended upon us. Ignorance and fear trumped the president’s inept handling of the war, the economy and the environment. You fight ignorance. You fight fear. You don’t cut and run to Canada.
And you certainly don’t unify behind them.
