Reproach and everlasting shame sit mocking in our plumes

Tim Cavanaugh | November 4, 2004

As promised, the saving grace of a Bush re-election would be that you get to enjoy plenty of long faces. Current headlines from the front page of Salon:

What do we do now?
Politicos, academics and artists -- Huffington, Paglia, Lamott, McInerney, Moby and more -- respond to the prospect of four more years of Bush

Table Talk
What are your predictions for the next four years?

Why Bush won: It's pretty simple, really -- Kerry was a poor candidate
By Farhad Manjoo

Bush, God and the Democrats: This country isn't secular or rational. And if the Dems want to win, they can't be either
By Edgar Rivera Colon

Forget the "heartland": A Kerry volunteer says Dems aren't latte-drinking snobs -- and they don't need to "reach out" to red state reactionaries
By Janet Sullivan

Let's get real: Salon readers confront the realities of George W. Bush's America

Sidney Blumenthal: Winning on fear itself, the GOP is ready to take the country even farther right

So you want to move to Canada? All you need to know about becoming a legal resident. Tip No. 1: Brush up on the prairie provinces
By Kevin Berger

The win that wasn't: For a few golden hours on Tuesday night, John Kerry smelled victory. But as he watched the map get redder and Ohio slip out of reach, he was forced to accept the inevitable
By Tim Grieve

Lose the old playbook, get some balls: The "black young'n" who predicted a blowout by Kerry explains where he and his fellow liberals went wrong -- and how to prevent it from happening again
By Kevin Criss

The shape of a second term: Guardian writers look at what Bush's reenergized agenda will mean for America and the rest of the world
By Suzanne Goldenberg et al.

King Kaufman's Sports Daily is on vacation

Andrew Leonard: The Internet makes it easy to find people we agree with. After Election Day 2004, maybe it's time to kick that habit

Waking up with the election blues: Liberal Britons hear the crushing news and begin swapping e-mails about how miserable they feel
By Emma Brockes

The Fix: Survival manual for Bush's next term; did Paris Hilton help Bush? Nick and Jessica: The state of our union is strong!

Scott Rosenberg: Democrats need to learn from their mistakes -- but they don't need to buy into talk of a Bush "mandate"
Start your own blog | Recently updated blogs

Waiting to vote: The long lines at polling stations in Ohio and elsewhere were outrageous -- it was a miracle voters didn't give up
By James K. Galbraith

One of the most depressing parties in history: Harvey Weinstein's Election Night event in New York wasn't quite the bash he'd hoped it would be. But some of his guests had a good time
By Rebecca Traister

GOP increases hold on the Senate: Colorado's Ken Salazar is the sole survivor. Minority leader Tom Daschle loses in South Dakota as Republicans pick up seats.
By Jeff Horwitz

News that's not fake enough: At "The Daily Show" election party, the comedy that helped us through the last four years can't quite mask the sadness
By Priya Jain and Corrie Pikul

Comments

|11.4.04 @ 7:42PM|#

There are some pretty funny reactions among the commenters on Matt Yglesias' site. My favorite: "We need to start lying to the sheep that make up the electorate."

|11.4.04 @ 8:03PM|#

I'm so old I don't give a shit, no matter what.
I thought Bush deserved to be fired. This democratization of Iraq is insanity, so who did the DemocRATS nominate? A Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde warrior/ antiwarrior who decided to play his warrior self during his campaign/crusade.
Instead of Spy vs. Spy, we had Warrior vs. Warrior. Who won?
All the foregoing to advise you whippersnappers of this:
Did you ever try to screw a lid back on a bottle or jar.
Did you ever screw it backward first to get the threads into alignment?
Speaking of threads into alignment: Where am I?
Oh, yeah. Hit and Run.
As I was saying.
If you know how to screw, you're willing to back it up a bit and have another go at 'er!
(Unless memory fails.)

|11.4.04 @ 8:12PM|#

Maybe the Democrats will over-react so much that they become a conspiratorial, revolutionary party like the Bolsheviks. Then the next time they win the presidency, they can really seize power and start herding those sheep.

No, I am not suggesting the Dems are Bolsheviks even though some of them are acting like the GOP are the Iron Guard.

Breathe deeply, George Bush is not Greg Stillson.

|11.4.04 @ 8:18PM|#

Heard that gays in red states are also sad with long faces. When did reason became anti-gay?

|11.4.04 @ 8:26PM|#

Hold it md
Who here has hurt your itty bitty feelings.
There'll be hell to pay!
You came to the right person: Ruthless!
(Fabius Cunctator, I'm guessing, is NOT the right person to set this right.)

|11.4.04 @ 8:47PM|#

Yo, Gramps, lay off the white lightnin' - or ask Ruth to come back, one.

|11.4.04 @ 9:22PM|#

a young whippersnapper,
Would you like Gramps to make your ass glisten? He can cum back one.

Want to watch, md?

|11.4.04 @ 10:11PM|#

Your money or your rights...and this country decides to keep the money.

|11.4.04 @ 10:45PM|#

Heard that gays in red states are also sad with long faces

Why are people pretending like only "red states" cracked down on gay rights? *All* the proposed bans passed, in red and blue states alike. Gay marriage bans get passed pretty much everywhere they're proposed, because even in most of the blue states the majority of the population dislikes the idea of gay marriage.

*America* is homophobic. If you think the problem is focused in the red states, you need to open your eyes.

|11.4.04 @ 11:39PM|#

Exactly when did every member of the GOP become a fundamentalist fanatic? Around the same time we all decided that gay marriage was our most important issue? I must've missed that meeting. I may be a horrid libertarian splitter within the party, but I am sick (and tired!) of the propensity of many Democrats to label Republicans as rich, white, bigoted, fundamentalist nutcakes. Um, is that supposed to be all 70-80 million members or just the ones who voted in this election? What about the independents and Democrats who voted for Bush? Jesus, how many people on any side of the aisle voted with any joy at all for his candidate? Heck, I wasn't entirely thrilled in voting for Badnarik, which just goes to show that we Americans are hard to please. Are there people mixing too much religion into their politics? Sure. Are they a remotely large percentage of the GOP or of the U.S.? No. Remember, things like abortion, teaching evolution, etc. have all had support from both sides of the aisle. Incidentally, there are and have been quite a few Bible thumpers in the Democratic Party--remember the South?

"Doesn't anybody notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!"

I hate to say something like this, but I'm actually concerned with the state of the Democratic Party. Not because of this election, but because of the growing abandonment of reason in exchange for some sort of Romantic notion that just wanting to believe something is all that matters. The right is crazy, too, but it seems to be that there's a lot more common sense and practicality on the right. Some loons may believe the Clintons killed Vince Foster, but you don't hear that kind of crap in the mainstream of the GOP. The reverse is not true--crazy statements about Bush and the Saudis, etc. are accepted without question. Here's some advice--when a "fact" is put forward that sounds a little whacked out, get some extraordinary proof before you go and accept it as true. Especially if the "fact" is something you want to believe. Or, to take the old American viewpoint, believe anything bad you hear about anyone in power, regardless of whether he's your guy or not. Like Caesar's wife, our politicians should be above suspicion.

|11.5.04 @ 12:02AM|#

I loved this article from the New York Times. Saw it over at the LRC blog:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/04/politics/campaign/04coast.html

(There might be a short ad)

|11.5.04 @ 8:47AM|#

Why are people pretending like only "red states" cracked down on gay rights?

Because the only nominal "blue" states on that list, Oregon and Michigan, are in reality red states with one concentrated urban area each. Just like in 2000, this year's county map makes it clear that the divide in this country is not red vs. blue *states* but rather urban vs. rural areas. It's absolutely true that large parts of the Democrat base are not friendly to gays. I am sure a gay marriage ban would pass in New York state, for example, which despite New York City is a largely rural, depressed state. But possibly not in Massachussetts or Vermont or a couple other really blue states.

|11.5.04 @ 8:56AM|#

It occurs to me that the more liberal arm of the Democrats shouldn't be entirely upset. A fairly liberal candidate got almost half of the vote. That's up from what such candidates have achieved in the past. Also, the Republicans and Democrats are becoming almost indistinguishable, once you look past rhetoric at deeds. Think about it. Who pushed NAFTA? Who signed the Defense of Marriage Act? Who passed massive education and welfare bills? Who restricted stem cell research and who loosened the restrictions? Honestly, I think the Clinton admininstration was effectively more "Republican" than the Bush administration, though that's largely a result of lacking any power in Congress and being lucky enough to be in office during an economic boom.

|11.5.04 @ 9:22AM|#

According to a Boston Globe poll, 53% of Massachusetts residents oppose gay marriage.

|11.5.04 @ 9:25AM|#

Because the only nominal "blue" states on that list, Oregon and Michigan, are in reality red states with one concentrated urban area each.

Check out the county map. You will discover that every blue state is blue because of its concentrated urban areas. Not sure what difference this makes, but you brought it up.

The easy equation that too many people make between "homophobia" and opposition to gay marriage just proves they don't get out much. A great many people who have no problems with what gay people do with their willies and hoo-ha's are opposed to judicial redefinitions of the legal status of marriage. A smaller number of the tolerant majority are also opposed to the legislative redefinition of marriage, and an even smaller number, possibly not even a majority, are opposed to civil unions.

The gay activists forgot that successful politics in America is fundamentally incrementalist. They pushed way too hard, trying to bypass the democratic and cultural processes, and what they are seeing now is the pushback. If they had gone for civil unions via the state legislatures, and had forsworn using Full Faith and Credit to force recognition of gay unions in other states, they would probably be rolling up the victories state by state now, as I have seen a number of polls showing support for civil unions but oppositon to gay marriage.

As it is, they have the sown the wind in Massachusetts and San Francisco, and they are reaping the whirlwind nationwide.

coyote|11.5.04 @ 10:11AM|#

Here's my favorite post election end of the world article, with my response.

|11.5.04 @ 10:21AM|#

pollman: "According to a Boston Globe poll, 53% of Massachusetts residents oppose gay marriage."

Including that creature that Doctor Frankenstein built for secret Yuletide time missions to Cambodia.

|11.5.04 @ 10:56AM|#

I agree with RC (and the Sox won the Series and hell is cooling down). In sex and politics, timing is everything.

Of course, if it wasn't gay marriage, I'm pretty sure Rove would have come up with some other straw man to throw out to the crackers.

|11.5.04 @ 10:57AM|#

A fairly liberal candidate got almost half of the vote.

I think that says more about people's dissatisfaction with Bush than their approval of Kerry.

You will discover that every blue state is blue because of its concentrated urban areas.

Correct, almost. There are occasional college counties like Tompkins in New York and the western counties of Massachussetts that are exceptions to the rule. Not to mention the entire states of Vermont and Maine. But in general, you are right, and that is why the country's divide is urban/rural not red vs. blue.

The gay activists forgot that successful politics in America is fundamentally incrementalist. They pushed way too hard, trying to bypass the democratic and cultural processes, and what they are seeing now is the pushback.

Probably right. But consider... the final outcome is going to be same anyway. After ten or twenty years of incremental change, gay marriage might have been legal in the (hard) blue states, and every red state (and maybe swing state) would have long since rushed to ban it anyway. The red states are so solidly... red, I can't see any kind of incremental change occurring there.

Tim Cavanaugh|11.5.04 @ 11:18AM|#

Just like in 2000, this year's county map makes it clear that the divide in this country is not red vs. blue *states* but rather urban vs. rural areas.

So I guess I'm the only one who thinks the real divide is water vs. land? When I look at that map, I see blue clusters on both coasts, right down the Mississippi, around the great lakes, on the Ohio river, and along the Rio Grande.

Republicans are hydrophobic!

|11.5.04 @ 11:40AM|#

So I guess I'm the only one who thinks the real divide is water vs. land?

I hope you've noticed that cities tend to be located on water (at least they used to be, back when that mattered over the course of history until about, oh, fifty years ago). But it's interesting you mentioned the Mississippi and the Rio Grande - there's a lot of blue there in rural regions that I can't explain.

|11.5.04 @ 11:52AM|#

W. C. Fields was anti-water, because he observed fish fuck in it.
Folks who tolerate water tend to tolerate just about anything.