To summarize the recent presidential election as a tragedy doesn't tell the whole story, because it was a mystery, too. A vast, unfathomable mystery. Who are all these people who voted for George Bush? I can count the number of Bush supporters I've met on one hand. When I've made this observation in the past, I've been told, "You people in L.A. and New York live in a liberal bubble that's in no way reflective of the rest of America." I used to shrug my shoulders and assume that was true, but having done some first hand research into the matter I now beg to differ.
A week prior to the November election I went to St. Louis; as Missouri was a swing state, and California was certain to vote democratic, I figured my humble efforts as an activist might be of greater use in St. Louis. I feel obliged to confess at this point that like most Americans, I'm incredibly lazy and self-involved, but George Bush has brought our fragile republic to such a terrifying state of disrepair that even I felt obliged to do more than just complain. So I went to St. Louis to work for Election Protection, an ad hoc committee organized by the NAACP.
The sole mission of Election Protection was to protect the black vote -- black voters were, of course, the most grievously disenfranchised group of Americans during the last election. In the week running up to the election we volunteers canvassed black neighborhoods, encouraging people to vote and offering transportation to anyone needing a ride to their polling place. On the day of the election we worked as non-partisan observers at a polling place in an exclusively black neighborhood. There were three of us working as a team that day, and we were instructed to be at our assigned polling place when it opened at 6:00; when we arrived there at 5:30 in the morning, we found a line of 150 people standing in the pouring rain waiting to vote. This was a very moving sight. Throughout the day, most voters were required to wait in line for at least an hour, but nobody complained; everyone seemed to understand that there was a lot at stake with this election, and they were determined to vote. It wasn't made easy for them, either. People were often sent to the wrong polling place, one woman was turned away and told she'd already cast an absentee ballot -- which she swore she hadn't done -- while others were told they couldn't vote because they were incorrectly registered. It was a long day -- we were there for 13 hours -- and during that time I didn't come across a single voter there to support Bush. The black community does not like George Bush.
While in St. Louis I stayed with the elderly mother of a friend of mine who lives an assisted-living facility. Every night I had dinner with her in the communal dining room where I chatted with a succession of residents between the ages of 75 and 95, none of whom voted for George Bush. In fact, some of his severest critics are among the elderly -- perhaps because they've been around long enough to understand just how much this country has lost under his administration. Old people don't like Bush either.
I still can't figure out who voted for George Bush. If millions of American voters support Bush and his war, why is the military having such a hard time corralling troops to go fight that war? Don't all those voters want their kids to enlist and fight this righteous war? A story on the front page of today's paper reports that "the Bush administration proposes to roll back 'critical habitat' for the ever-declining salmon and steelhead trout by 90%. Developers applaud the plan." Who on earth could possibly think this is a good idea? Do millions of Bush supporters have some personal vendetta against fish? Does Bush have something against fish? Like I said, it's a mystery. I don't understand the country or the times that I'm living in.
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