Over the course of the Bush administration, I've repeatedly started and repeatedly stopped an essay or a letter on a theme that feels so huge to me, I can't ever get it concisely into words. I'm not sure I can today, but speeches at the Republican National Convention have picked scab after scab, and so I think I'll try to get this theme out, let it be my summation of two weeks of conventions.
My theme has always started with the words George Bush doesn't want to be my president. This week I have come to the conclusion that John McCain doesn't, either. Once I would have thought that, as different as we are, he'd at least assume that "willing patriots" included people like me. At the end of a full week of speeches by his surrogates and supporters, I am left with the inescapable conclusion that that John McCain, if he existed, is now too beholden to the radical community organizers who get out the ideological vote. The rest of us, you moderates and faithful liberals, you whiners, you 70% of the American public, have been cast aside.
Once the campaign of 2000 ended, when George W Bush took the White House still promising to be "a uniter, not a divider", his method for unity was creative: all citizens who disagreed with anything he said or did simply ceased to exist. All decisions were explained with The American People want..., any challenge to a decision was met with, The American People want.... Each time he made a decision, he chose the path guaranteed to be met with the greatest controversy and opposition, and then sneered at any opposition for not trusting his judgement for the sake of The American People.
(Except in his first stem cell decision, summer of 2001. This time, he made a wishy-washy 50-50 call, because The American People had to include both Nancy Reagan and James Dobson.)
When the March For Women's Lives brought over a million people to the National Mall in support of a vast array of policies: comprehensive sex-ed, access to contraception, canceling the deadly global gag rule, and yes: protecting Roe v Wade, We didn't expect the president to acknowledge us, really. He was up at Camp David, anyway, and even though he always acknowledges the comparatively tiny annual anti-abortion demonstrations in DC, it would have been a stretch to think he'd give us a wave.
What we didn't expect was that the media would for the most part ignore the sheer massiveness of the March, or that Karen Hughes would be trotted out to respond. The American People, she said, understand since 9/11 that the US is different from terrorists because we value a Culture of Life.
When challenged her words later, she said she had never compared pro-choice citizens to terrorists- which is true, strictly and carefully speaking. What she did, and what she was not challenged on, was sweep our very citizenship out from under us by excluding us from The American People.
The Bush administration, with back up from the press, did this consistently throughout his first term. There was no thoughtful opposition to the invasion of Iraq: there were Anti-War groups and Pro-America groups. Meaning that my position was, by default, Anti-American. Dixie Chicks CD burning rallies? Pro-America! Get a camera out there! March on the White House by veteran's groups? Never happened, as far as the administration and the media were concerned. A recent analysis of guests on the major news outlets during this period found that opposition to the invasion was consistently presented by foreigners. That is, Americans presented to us by the news media almost uniformly supported the invasion.
It's like being in a dream, where you keep trying to scream, but no sound comes out. Is it any wonder so many of us took to the streets?
This rhetorical exclusion continued apace until finally, Bush redefined the terms. After the election of 2004, rather than attempting to pretend that The American People wanted anything in unanimity, he said he would work with everyone, if they supported his goals. Which meant not Goals, like dealing with Social Security in such a way that the government meets its responsibilities, but specific policies: private accounts for all.
At least this time he was honest.
After the summer of 2005 (Camp Casey, Katrina, and falling poll numbers- trifecta!) surrogates like Mary Matalin, rather than ignoring us entirely, went on the air to offer cheap analysis and faux pity. It's just so sad, these people. They're so angry. Bush began to at least acknowledge that some of The American People disagree with him, on a lot. But that does not mean his style of governing changed, nor has the rhetorical exile for most of us. The press continues to court the fiction that opposing Bush on anything is "leftist" or "extreme", even when poll data belies that.
The party George Bush leads enjoys this kind of with us/ against us bravado, and has no desire to change it. In fact, the party's strength has always been in hardening that rhetorical divide- there is no political gain, for them, in respect for differences, in bipartisanship, in synthesis of ideas.
The mythology of John McCain lies in his perceived rejection of such division. Working across the aisle, all of that. This week, however, a week when he presumably needed to both fire up the Base and make an appeal to moderates and independents, the convention has been about nothing except defining, once again, the The American People who attended his convention and debasing the rest of us.
President Bush, confined to a few minutes from a remote location, still managed to remind the delegates why the campaign mattered: The Hateful Left is obviously still a threat, and John McCain won't let them win.
(Which is interesting, because on what may be described as McCain's two signature issues over the past 4 years- immigration and torture- he capitulated not to any Hateful Left, but to the nationalist right and President Bush, respectively.)
Romney sneered at us. Guiliani made fun of us. Sarah Palin skinned us like a recent kill. The Senator from Arizona? He made some noise about respecting Obama for what he's accomplished, but it rang empty when followed up with the willing patriots line. Let's face it: Patriot means, to them, whatever they've decided it to mean this week. Willing Patriot means supporting whatever it is they want to do this week. If they win, we are headed straight to rhetorical and practical exile, once again.
McCain does not have the Rove-built get out the vote organization that Bush did. He's counting on those red meat delegates and the Focus on the Family email list to win this thing. They do not want to hear that the other side has a rightful seat at the table, nor will they work to elect anyone who won't harden the divide.
I look forward to packing away my giant Sharpies and giving up the need to march in the streets. I'm hoping that we can have an administration for all Americans, one that won't pretend that faithful opposition and valid counter arguments don't exist, that won't seek to define everything outside of their preferences as "fringe", "left", "hateful", "angry". I am hoping that under such a presidency, I would lose the scream stuck in my throat feeling, and actual work could be done in the federal government, for the betterment of our country.
John McCain, like George Bush before him, does not seek to be my president. To my way of thinking, he doesn't deserve the office.
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