What Now
Given by James Covington on November 11th, 2004
What now? Well, who knows? Depending on whose side one is on, the response to the election has ranged from ecstatic euphoria to tearful anguish and despair. Understandably, there is a lot of critical self-examination going on by the party who lost. The feelings that many are experiencing are not unlike those we have when we have lost someone dear to us: disbelief, anger, doubt, self-incrimination, and finally, perhaps, acceptance. This is an understandable and necessary process. But then life goes on. Or, in this case, the country goes on. Then the question becomes: “How does the country go on?” What now?
There is some good news out of this election that we can all celebrate. For the first time in decades, the number of people who voted increased significantly. The number of folks who actually got involved in the election went through the roof. As usual, lots of “big money” drove the election but small amounts of money collected online from lots of people added up to big money. More important, armies of regular people, including some of you in this room, got out and knocked on doors, made calls, held house parties and traveled to neighboring states to help register new voters. The voter turnout was one of the highest in recent history. Still, for many, the wrong candidate won.
Then there is the red and blue division. Look at the map, and yep, looks like there are two nations alright. And yet, even in many of the red states, people are almost evenly divided. There is immense diversity of opinions in towns and villages across the land. And the religious right isn’t a majority, far from it in fact. The Republican Party managed to mobilize it to its advantage. Even though the country still lives in the aftermath of 9/11 and no president in wartime has ever been defeated, Mr. Bush did not win in a landslide. There was a mere 3 million vote difference. Capital? Did he say “political capital?” I don’t think so.
President Bush in his victory speech on Wednesday, indicated that he would “reach out to the whole nation,” including those who voted for John Kerry. We are at our best when we are a united country, he said. That’s a laudable goal, of course. Making it a reality will be a daunting challenge. The constituency to which Bush owes his victory, is not a yielding one.
And of course, the most riveting outcome of the election is learning from the exit polls that the deciding factor in this race was neither the economy nor the War in Iraq, nor terrorism, although all were high on people’s minds. Instead, “moral values,” a synonym, I only assume, for religious faith and character was named by 22% of the electorate as the key issue for voters. I don’t know how to read that. Twenty-two percent? Why wasn’t it 80%? “Moral values” is such a catch-all phrase. What does it mean?
Of course, George W. Bush talked comfortably and frequently about his personal faith and ran on what his conservative religious base called the “moral issues.” On the Democratic side, Senator John Kerry invoked the New Testament story of the Good Samaritan, talked about the importance of loving our neighbors, and said that faith without works is dead—but only began talking that way at the very end of his campaign.
This week I talked with my Southern Baptist, born-again, friends and cousins in Tennessee, a state that has not voted for a losing president since 1960. That span includes Kennedy, Johnson, Carter and yes, Bill Clinton. Last summer they told me they would be voting for Kerry and a few weeks ago they told me they had changed their minds. I asked why. Their answer: because they didn’t trust Kerry and didn’t like his wife. “What didn’t they trust about him?” I asked. My cousin Polly gave the common answer: “I couldn’t figure out what he stood for. He seemed like a phony, to me.” Kerry’s moral beliefs were not an issue for her. Neither was gay marriage and abortion. She just didn’t feel connected to him.
While the apparent moral issue gap is certainly an important issue, I am suspicious that it has become overblown. I believe John Kerry and his team lost the election and that Karl Rove won. Along with a zillion other theories out there, that’s what I think. I began to have my own concerns when I first saw the senator wind-surfing into the sunset, and then photographed later in his hunting outfit, with two dead geese hanging by their necks. It was not the acts themselves that mattered so much. They were photo opportunities that spoke of something else. While a good man, perhaps, he didn’t connect with the common folk. Like it or not, in this country, that’s important. Just ask Bill Clinton.
Karl Rove is a brilliant “architect” as Bush, borrowing a phrase from The Matrix, referred to him this week, who masterfully orchestrated the Bush re-election team and used the “gay-marriage” issue as a political strategy to energize the right-wing base. Rove won.
Well, what do we do now? I woke up on Tuesday morning, fairly convinced that the outcome of the election would be as it actually happened. When the final votes were tallied and Kerry conceded, I felt two reactions: I was genuinely curious and I also felt emboldened.
My curiosity had to do with understanding what’s actually going on in the red states of America. Why is the country becoming more conservative? Why are people “contracting”(conservatism) instead of “expanding.”(liberalism)? Why is religious fundamentalism so popular? I admit, part of me desperately and angrily believes that people are ignorant, stupid. But it’s not nice and I don’t think it’s helpful to think that way. It’s contemptuous. Contempt exists on both sides of the political fence. I think we all know how we respond to contempt. Shall we just try to out-contempt each other? Yet, many people actually believe more fervently in the virgin birth than in evolution. It seems that facts are no longer important. Belief is paramount. Not facts. Why is that?
In my opinion this shift in America is being driven by fear, successfully capitalized on, of course, by the Bush administration. And certainly, the world we live in now is terrifying. Terrorism is a real force in the minds of most Americans. Why wouldn’t it be? But is there something else? I can’t help but wonder. I’ll just say it. My suspicion, my intuition actually, is that many Americans are experiencing emptiness and fear in their lives brought on by societal values, promoted mostly by the media, which alienate families, undermine parental authority and confuse moral values. My speculation is that people are fearful because we live in a social and economic system that drains the life out of us and promotes values that are deadening to the spirit: greed, materialism, competitiveness, overwork, alienation from others. Am I talking about family values here? Yes. If I am right, then I can understand why religious faith can appear to be a way to fight against the emptiness and the fear of moral unraveling. Same sex marriage is simply used as trigger point for such fear. The Republicans utilized that trigger. The Democrats missed the issue altogether.
Yes, what we hear from fundamentalists has mostly to do with abortions, gay marriage, stem-cell research. And maybe that’s as far as it goes. But I wonder if it is not symptomatic of a deeper fear that no one is talking about. So first, I felt curious. And remain curious. The liberal sector of the country may bemoan how “shallow” people are, but it won’t help regain popular support for their cause one iota.
Then I felt emboldened. Elections are not the be-all and end-all of democracy. Democracy is messy. What did Churchill say? “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” For democracy to succeed, it must be more than an annual or quadrennial ritual: it must be a way of living and relating to one’s fellow citizens in terms of equality and respect.
Good losers are in many ways the linchpin of democratic government. By remaining loyal(but not uncritical) in opposition, by continuing to provide a popular check to government excess and by working to protect the rights and interests of citizens where a misguided or unjust ruling elite does not, those who lose well are central protagonists in the story of self-government.
Hear me now. This election’s losers, therefore, should swallow their bitter pill with grace and with a renewed commitment to the project of a just, humane and democratic United States.
I know that most of those who voted for John Kerry remain extremely skeptical and fearful. As someone wrote last week: “What can we expect for the next four years: the future will be good for corporations and bad for the environment, good for the rich and bad for the poor, good for religion in politics and bad for separation of church and state, good for isolating ourselves and bad for international cooperation.”
Well if that’s the way you feel, then the responsibility you have to fight for what you think is right is greater than ever. It is imperative now that moderate and progressive religious citizens, along with those non-religious humanists and atheists, all need urgently to band together if they want their agenda to move forward. The impact of the religious evangelicals is without question. But a broad majority of voters indicated to pollsters that they favored a middle approach on many social issues such as gay rights and legal abortions. My hope is that the president will lead the way toward laying the foundation for a new national consensus. If not, then those of us who feel committed to such an agenda must remain steadfast. I, for one, feel emboldened to do just that. I must act.
That’s why I renewed my membership this week with The Interfaith Alliance and increased my financial contribution. That organization is a consortium of progressive and moderate religious leaders who stand for the separation of church and state and support the liberal ideals of economic justice, gender equality, and human rights.
The intersection of religion, politics and ideology will remain a staying ground for many of the most riveting social issues of our day. We must be prepared.
I do not anticipate Bush’s second term will be easy or even successful. Perhaps Bush will work more from the center; perhaps he will have no choice. The most immediate matter at hand is the mess in Iraq, which has been overshadowed in recent weeks because of the election. I read last week that most of the trained, educated class who can best contribute to Iraq’s restoration have either been murdered by the insurgents or have left the country. The coming days are likely to be brutal in that country.
The impending death of Yasser Arafat will also have serious reverberations in the Middle-East. The president’s response and willingness now to lead the way toward negotiating a fair and just two-state solution is urgently needed.
Supreme court nominees, church-state issues, and the explosion of the budget deficit will become major points of contention in the days to come. I think that it will be important for us to bridge the moral gap, to whatever extent it exists, but the intensity that grew out of the recent campaign must continue. I have no doubt that many within the 49% of the public who voted against Bush will continue to take principled stands for domestic and foreign policy. I hope it is otherwise, but I anticipate, in fact, that the next four years may be the most contentious since the Vietnam War.
In the meantime, the liberal constituency will need to speak to those family moral and spiritual yearnings for stability and meaning and also turn them into progressive purposes in domestic policy such as poverty, economic injustice, and the environment. I firmly believe it is up to each and every one of us to remind society that defining the soul of a nation by wedge-issues promoted by the Religious Right and similar groups will only further divide this nation. On the other hand, liberals need to reconnect to the religious element in this country without projecting disdain. I read a story this week somewhere about how distraught many Manhattanites have become as a result of the election. Several people were interviewed and asked for their opinions on where we go from here. One woman replied: “What’s different about New York City is it tends to bring people together and so we can’t ignore each others dreams and values and it creates a much more inclusive consciousness. When you’re in a more isolated environment you’re more susceptible to some ideology that might be imposed on you.” As an example, she offered the different attitudes New Yorkers may have about social issues like gay marriage. “We live in this marvelous diversity where we actually have gay neighbors,” she said. “They’re not some vilified unknown. They are our neighbors.” Then she said: “If the heartland feels so alienated from us, then it behooves us to wrap our arms around the heartland. We need to bring our way of life, which is honoring diversity and having compassion for people with different lifestyles, on a trip around the country.” I don’t know how realistic her idea is, but I like its sentiment.
What now? The people of this nation are going to have a lot of work to do if we are to work together and not against one another to meet the challenges of our time, both foreign and domestic. It will require more than merely a rhetorical distinction between disagreeing with one’s neighbors and demonizing them. I don’t know how we can do that, but I know it’s what we must strive for. But the demonizing must stop.
Lao-Tzu put it this way: “Patient with both friends and enemies [and] compassionate toward yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world.” Simply stated, the great work we have ahead of us requires that we engage with other people not as objects to be overcome, but rather as human beings who have their own beliefs, and hopes, and fears, and ambitions. Without understanding them in this way, nothing is possible—not victory, not a spirit of camaraderie, not a sense of community. Otherwise, we may well indeed become two nations.
In this respect, there may in fact be too little true religion in politics, not too much. If one wants to be Biblical in politics, well, the Bible provides much more ammunition to support liberals than conservatives. Therefore we may have too little religion. Too little of the religion prescribed by the prophet Micah: “to do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with your God.” Too little of the religion taught by Rabbi Jesus, who said “love your neighbor as yourself.” He also said, not coincidently, that we are to love our enemies. Too little of the religion as defined by Thomas Jefferson, who said, “It is in our lives and not in our words that our religion must be read.”