It's awful that it's gone this way. It's awful that it did so on what may be actual votes (though the chatter on dKos suggests that some unfunny funny stuff may indeed have taken place). It's awful that 51% of the voting public was duped or thinks radically differently or whatever happened. The pundits are gnawing on just what it was that did happen.
I note however these two facts:
1. The 48%. The minority could have been smaller, and that would have been worse. 48% is close enough to being the half or in fact the majority that the 48% has to take seriously the need to stand fast and fight hard for the next four years. The temptation is to flee, but that would put the remaining good folk (the then 47% and dropping) in an increasingly bad spot.
Other people have made these points. Stand and fight, says Meteor Blades. Sit and refuse to be moved, says DHinMI, both Kossacks. Hold the line, they say at Not Geniuses, quoting the New Republic at length. An excellent post on Another Liberal Blog points out that the Bush victory was by an embarrassingly thin margin, historically thin, thinner than an incumbent has ever squeaked by on before. Meanwhile, turnout was enormous, with the result that though Bush can truthfully claim to have been elected by more voters than any other American president in history, he is also the only American president ever to have been voted against by so many as voted against him now. More Americans voted for Kerry than voted for Reagan. That's tremendous. And that's nothing the 48% should walk away from.
2. Iraq is a disaster and going to get much worse before it gets better. Take heart in the fact that none of the enormous amount of shit-splattering that is going to happen is going to hit Kerry or the Democrats. It will stick to Bush, to Cheney, to their machine, and to the Republicans in general. This means that a) when the country finally gets rid of the bastards, a Democratic president may be able to go credibly anew to the world and plead forgiveness for the deeds of the Republicans. That is, there is a possibility for keeping the idea alive in the mind of the world that this is the doing of some Americans, not all Americans. And b) perhaps some of the 51% will start noticing that this is a disaster, and cross the line over into what is now the 48%, swelling the ranks.
As Leofsunu exhorted his companions at Maldon by example:
Ic þæt gehate, þæt ic heonon nelle
fleon fotes trym, ac wille furðor gan ...I swear this, that I will not from this place
a foot's tread flee, but go onward ...
And though I might cite Maldon here, this is not a hopeless fight.
Áfram, 48%, áfram ...
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