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The strange thing is most debate I hear revolves around
the guy you hate, Bush or Kerry, not the guy you like.
Truthfully, it’s encouraging to see everyone
fired up. But if everyone is hateful of the other
guy, whichever one he may be for you, and if your
vote is cast from this hate, are you really voting
for anyone?
These days most people’s minds are made up
fast (actually, most people’s minds were made
up three years ago), so who really benefits from a
limited field of presidential candidates? Seems like
these days you’re either afraid to change leadership
mid-war or afraid not to, so whoever’s got you
support only has it because he’s not the other
guy.
Suppose there were three, or four, or ten candidates,
all professing different visions of the future. Suppose
there was actual choice involved. Our leaders tell
us to get out and vote, but it seems this comes at
the cost of actual decision-making. If it’s
not simply “This guy or this guy” maybe
the decision would be too difficult for our already
vote-phobic citizenry. Maybe we’d be stricken
with a strange brain paralysis. Speech would fail
us and our heads would explode.
The last night of the DNC I went to a John Kerry
keg party at my friend’s place. He’d done
the living room in campaign posters. There was a table
with pamphlets, stickers, pins, more posters, leaflets
and name tags. He’d rented a huge screen and
projector, the same set-up he had for the Eagles-Bucs
game last year. A crowd showed up, maybe 40 people,
most of them not anyone we knew, just local Dems who
saw the party listed on the website. Someone made
jello shots. I stood there watching this enormous
screen in my friend’s living room, surrounded
by people I didn’t recognize, and this fear
gripped me that I’d be outed as a skeptic, not
someone who was on board completely.
I looked around at the rapt faces and kept my mouth
shut, though inside I was busting. “This speech
is just a string of unassailable slogans! Why are
you clapping?” I looked over at our host, my
friend from college. He kept bopping his head like
he was at a concert. He clapped every time Kerry took
a pause. I wanted to walk over and tap him on the
shoulder. “Hey,” I’d tell him. “You’re
a gay man and as of yet Kerry has not come out in
favor of you, so what’s with the enthusiasm?”
I wanted to tell everyone there that John Kerry was
only left-leaning enough for them to sleep at night,
but not so progressive as to enact actual change,
1960s-style. He’s only better than the alternative,
but not really all that good himself. If he was one
of, say, eight candidates running, do you really,
I mean really, think you’d be clapping right
now?
I knew if I said any of this it’d be the end.
They’d attack me like Frankenstein’s monster.
“He’s not one of us!” they’d
holler as they pushed me out of the apartment and
into the night. “Go party with Nader!”
they’d yell.
So I kept quiet. I listened to the people talking
on television. Truthfully, I didn’t blame anyone
in that room for their convictions. They’re
scared. They’re excited and angry. So am I.
I’m pulling for Kerry, big time. But in a better
world (not perfect, just better) I wouldn’t
vote for him, and I don’t know that many of
them would either. They’re enthusiasm is not
based on what he is but on what he isn’t. Listen,
it doesn’t matter if it comes out tomorrow that
a couple years ago Kerry murdered babies and ate them.
He might lose some swing votes. But for most people
there’s no other choice. Kerry doesn’t
have to campaign for any but about 12 of his votes
in Pennsylvania and Ohio. So in a sense by refusing
to fight for a multi-party system we’ve surrendered
our right to participate in a republic. We don’t
actually have real choice.
Just before Kerry took the podium, this guy comes
up to me and introduces himself, says he was never
very political-minded before this election, but now
he’s in a tizzy about Bush. “I mean, I
voted for Al Gore in 2000, of course,” he says.
Even when he had a choice he didn’t want it.
I smiled back at him. “Of course,” I said.
I went home that night and tried to talk myself out
of making up my mind, too. Stay open, I told myself.
Stay vigilant. Don’t decide four months before
the election who you’re going to vote for. Vote
your conscience. Get active. Because in some ways
my coworker is right. People are angry and scared
and divided and there’s a sense in the air that
the future of our country rests on this election.
But in a very important way she is wrong. This isn’t
the 1960s. These days we aren’t fighting because
of what we believe in; we’re fighting because
of what we don’t.
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