My Thoughts on the "Why" of the Election

[Charles19]

If anyone wanted to read it. I felt a little better after being quite depressed about the election after I wrote it. I am a Muslim and writing it mostly to them so if the perspective looks a bit off that might be why. Below I say I am not a registered Democrat but do consider myself fairly progressive, so please don't ban my account from this site because I am not a registered Dem, I love posting here and think I belong here.

Here is the piece:

First off I would like to say I am not a Democrat. I am registered as no party and will likely stay that way. The long discussion on parties will wait for another day because right now that is not important. What this scenario brings up is many questions, many many questions for us to ask ourselves. First off has to be:

* Why did over 59,000,000 people come out to vote for Bush?

The honorable Jaun Cole whom I agree with about 99% of the time says we the Democrats need to nominate a http://www.juancole.com/2004_11_01_juancole_archive.html#109958311857266842">"Bubba a southern governor with a southern accent who is a Baptist." While this sounds logical I think it is horrible. If the majority of this country is so closed minded as to abandon all qualified people whether they be women, blacks, whites, smart, etc. because they are not from the South is not a democracy. Certainly not the way we should function in the United States. So Jaun thinks it is mostly because the southerners will only vote for their own kind. If you look at the returns in rural areas of the entire country I disagree. This election turned out to be city vs. country. The large population centers in most of the country went to Kerry, only some of the large population centers in the South went to Bush. Rest for Bush was all country. Now why exactly did this happen? Are the people in the country prospering under Bush? (no) Are the people in the country getting any economic benefit under Bush? (no) Can people in the country relate more to Bush? (in their minds yes, in reality NO) Bush and his family are about as far from "country folk" as it gets but the country folk don't know that. Bush is not a country bumpkin, he only plays one on TV. So I think I have to rule that out because if any of them actually thought about that point the absurdity of it quickly boils to the surface. So maybe it has to do with them thinking their "values" are in line with Bush's? (HUGE YES) Now why would they think that? Brilliant marketing is the answer. Brilliant marketing by the Bush people to get these people to think Bush is on their side (with a wink and a nod), meaning he hate's gays, is afraid of minorities, love's God, love's marriage, and loves family. Now I discounted this going into the election because I felt Kerry actually scored better in the "values" column than Bush. However the Republican media machine, i.e. the Fox cheerleading network, mainstream media, and all the print media (books included) had everyone all primed to know (wink and nod) who the real values guy was and which one was faking. Remember no one can do a wink and nod and mean it like those southern boys, and everyone knows a wink and a nod don’t count without a southern accent.

Bush had Kerry beat before it got started and the opposition, myself included who claimed to be so much smarter ahead of time didn't even realize it. Over 59,000,000 people wanted the Chief Executive of the United States of America to have their same "values", above all other criteria. They can forgive, lying, overspending, neglect of management, and recklessness as long as they get someone with the same values. Now I know this is sounding absurd, and it is because it is, but there is more to the story. Why would a group pick such a thing as the number one factor? This is where we need to look at the humanity behind it.

Start with the background of this group: Evangelicals and Christians who go to church a lot. Now here is where the Democrats analysis and my analysis diverge sharply. At this point they think "right wing religious nut jobs", they equate "religious" with "stupid". They think that because someone has faith they don't need facts to prove things and put faith in the president as well because the numbers just don't add up as to how good this president does his job. I disagree. Why they are voting for him is another reason. Evangelicals and Christians in this country while their religions have their own oddities have one very unique thing in common and they also have this in common with all their political pundits they like to hear preach to them all the time and that is they are HYPOCRITES. Yes you won't here that on CNN or FOX but you are hearing it here.

Lets start with their king bee, Rush Limbaugh. Rush expounded over many years the foundations of virtue and integrity we need to put into our everyday lives, how we should work hard to gain wealth and not count on others to make it for us, to have tough love towards the poor so they can have more pride by working their way out of poverty. How lazy dopers had no right to sympathy, but it turns out Rush was a doper. Addicted to Oxycontin and other heroine family drugs. See Rush was expounding on these virtues to make himself feel good because he had so exceeded the limits in his drug use that was all that was left. Compensating for “bad” by preaching “good”. It is not an uncommon thing and it called hypocrisy.

Next we have Bill Bennet, author of such works as "Why We Fight: Moral Clarity and the War on Terrorism" and "Book of Virtues". This guy actually wrote the book on virtue. He sold many books and had made millions with other "virtue" works as well. What people didn't know was this was financing his multi-million dollar http://slate.msn.com/id/2082526/">gambling habit. This wasn't go to the casino and play a bit gambling. See he was Mr. Virtue he couldn’t be seen doing that, he actually had them bring the machines to his hotel room and he would sit in his room and play them. While some might consider this not such a big vice, I am a Muslims and we do. Mr. Bennet was expounding virtue to compensate for his exceeding the limits of gambling. This is hypocrisy folks.

I could expound upon more of the Right Wing pundits hypocrisy but I think I have made my point there and I don't want to get into pegging individuals because I really only hope Mr. Bennet and Mr. Limbaugh now find help. That being outed on their bad habits helps them curb them and seek forgiveness.

Now there is another group that has some reckoning to do. The Evangelicals and the Christians (I used to be Catholic) in this election did some preaching of their own. See how does it come to be that ones top priority in choosing a president is virtues and values like your own? It comes to be because you are trying to compensate for your own exceeding the limits and gross faults. We all have them but the media in this country has become so tailored to helping people now feel good about these things they know are wrong: over spending, over eating, over working, over porned, over drunk, over gambling, over drugged, etc. that people now are expressing it in the ballot box as this twisted form of recompense.

These people know there 40,000 dollar gas guzzling SUV is excessive, they know there 3500 square foot house is excessive, they know their paying 20% interest on a credit card for buying excessive things is, well excessive. They want to feel they are still "good", "honorable", "vituous". Well the mainstream media has started tapping into helping them feel ok about their addictions to such material nonsense. Not only that they have found that they can get people to think that if they vote for the "values" guy it means they also have good values. It also means to them that no matter how poor they are, how much war is made, how many people suffer, or how little sense it makes, they are now forgiven for their gross excesses, their sins because they voted "values". Well Bush is not Mr. Values and you people... are hypocrites.

The election booth is not where you go for forgiveness of sins. By all means I want to vote for a stand up, honarable guy as well. None of us are perfect, none of us can be, we all do non-virtuous things and try to improve on such things. No man can be God like and Bush I truly believe thinks he is. Anyone who claims they have not made mistakes, they do not need to consult others and that no dissenting opinion needs to be heard is doing just that. That is wrong and someone who wants to vote values should vote against that kind of nonsense.