My Analysis of the Election

I wrote this for an internet message board on which I regularly post. It sums up my thoughts on the election:

When I did my political score cards I came out generally with a 60/40 Kerry split. I like Bush's social security reform, stance on abortion (though I will probably disagree with the judges he nominates), and view on affirmative action. I don't feel like his tax cuts will have helped the economy greatly in the long run because eventually we will have to pay for all of this spending our taxes will go up just from the deficit. I am glad he has recently supported civil unions but I think the gay marriage ballot initiatives were evil, political tools to rally the base, and a sad reflection of our country's fears of homosexuality. And Karl Rove is a genius for what he pulled off, you cannot take credit away from him even if it was a manipulative use of fear on Americans. When you live in South Dakota and your biggest concern is terrorism, there might be something wrong there.

I voted voted for John Kerry because I do not like the way we look to the world after the Iraq war and because I did not think these specific moral issues were as important as our relationship with the world. Honestly, America scares a lot of people and after the lack of weapons in Iraq, voting in a new leader would have at least restored some of the world's faith in us as citizens. The people I have met in Europe have told me that they love Americans (except for our leaders) and it was refreshing that they were able to separate us from our government. But re-electing Bush makes that more difficult for them to do so. From a fiscal standpoint, the American brand is in trouble right now and this has been evidenced with coca cola and general motor's recent global troubles. These problems will directly affect our economy. Also, I am not a simple person and I wanted a leader that I believed was intelligent. Bush is incredible at making things easy to digest but I did not believe he was the brighter of the two candidates.

All in all, I am disappointed but I hope that Bush keeps his promise on social security and being a "uniter not a divider". A move to the middle will greatly help this country. The republicans have more power than they have had in recent history and changes are coming so we need to all pray that they will make the right ones and tackle the right issues. The fact that John Ashcroft might leave is comforting.

I spent most of the day feeling sick that the true America, the 70%+ of America that voted, disagreed with me. I couldn't understand how they could see the same world I did and come to such a different conclusion. But now I'm ok with it. The pendelum will swing back eventually but if Bush does cross the aisle perhaps positive changes can come.

Finally, tonight I thought about the two families. The Bushs are straight out of pleasantville or every 50's sitcom you have ever seen. I mean just look at Laura Bush. The Kerrys are the of "step-family" variety, and by that I mean everyone who has been raised by a single working mom, a gay dad, or any other non-traditional arrangement. In the end, who you vote for is really about more who do you identify with and if the majority of Americans are identifying with the family structure that is, let's say for lack of a better way to put it, easiest, then we are probably doing alright because more peopel are in families which have traditionally be viewed as more stable (for right or wrong). If the Republicans fuck up, and more people identify with the other family structures, then power will shift to the democrats and more attention will be directed towards social programs. These things are reassuring.

And here is a links I found that better explain how think this election was decided:

Why Bush Won

Put this into context with my last blog and I really think there is a growing understanding of the gender identity issue in this country.