And so it comes down to this. A day that will mark the most important election in my lifetime and certainly the most consequential since 1932. The polls show Obama leading and yet… One wonders how wealthy Republican John Sidney McCain III, standard bearer for the Party that Wrecked America, could have even 41 percent support, much less higher, much less be, perhaps, competitive in Pennsylvania, Florida and Virginia.
This support for a candidate who wholly represents the ruinous governing philosophy of conservatism — a set of ideas so discredited, exhausted and out of step with the values of most Americans that McCain's only strategy was a dishonorable campaign of despicable attacks on his opponent and riling up a hateful "base." The man who claims "Country First" picked — or was forced to pick — the most unqualified and dangerous vice presidential candidate in American history. Who are these supporters and what are they thinking? Has ignorance, television-induced brain damage and Republican hate finally pushed us past the tipping point? And election fraud, that determinative agent of the 2000 and 2004 elections, is an ever present danger. And the confluence of moneyed interests that fears Obama.
And yet, we have this moment, this last chance. John Adams reflected the realism of the Founders when he said democracies always eventually commit suicide. Decades later Lincoln rightly called this an experiment, not a fixed or secure order in human events. Now the American generations living will be tested at history's fulcrum.
Americans never have the "perfect candidate." I can imagine what today's Republicans would do to Lincoln; his adversaries at the time likened him to an ape or worse. Franklin Roosevelt was seen as a lightweight, a dilettante, despite his testing and suffering in the aftermath of polio. Eisenhower was slimed by the conservative attack machine, just gaining its training wheels in the form of Joe McCarthy. Behind the winning smile, Ike did McCarthy in — and Tailgunner Joe never saw the lethal round coming. Each of these imperfect men and many more like them led America to a sunlit future that we baby boomers witnessed — and have seen slipping away, especially through the past eight years.
George W. Bush rightly hides now. He presided over the debasement of the Constitution, the enshrinement of torture as American policy, an unnecessary and dangerously costly war waged on cooked intelligence, the failure to capture or kill bin Laden, the lethal federal incompetence in New Orleans and the worst financial collapse since the Depression — caused by the deregulation and oligarchy he championed. As bad are the opportunities deliberately lost, especially on global warming and the limited world oil resources that even Bush admits. America has lost its moral compass, squandered precious moral capital in the world, wasted precious time. The Justice Department and federal judiciary have been poisoned, not only for the theocrats, but to give big business and monopoly an unbreakable hold on power. And John McCain would depart from these policies not one bit, except perhaps to open a new war in Iran.
All of this can be reversed. It will take sacrifice and hard work that Obama rightly said little of during the campaign. A nation living off the sacrifices of previous generations has been living in a haze. President Obama will give clarity and vision, courage and strength, the ability to articulate (!) our vast challenges and opportunities. The president can't and shouldn't do it all. But the past eight years have taught us just how much a president can do, and the danger of another George W. Bush.
For now, we have this moment. God help us that it will be enough.
Amen.
Some responses, in order:
Who are they and what are they thinking?
Whoever they are they are not thinking. They take their politics like thier religion -direct from the pulpit with no thought at all.
Election fraud – after the suspitions of the last two, dismissed by many, if it happens again there may be more active outcry and response.
Failure to capture Bin Laden: They know full well that if he is ever captured we will have no reason to keep the war going. I’m not surprised he’s loose.
A friend paraphrased Churcill at lunch ‘ “You can always count on America to do the right thing when there is no other choice.” If things aren’t bad enough yet, and McCain gets elected, it probably will be bad enough soon after.
Outstanding commentary, Mr. Talton. Living as I do in a city saturated by conservative mass media, it is not merely refreshing, but revivifying to find an articulate voice such as yours which is not reluctant to speak frankly.
I’ll second Emil’s comment!
Relax folks; we’ve had our next president determined since the nomination. The only reason it’s remotely close is the color of his skin. It’s going to be anticlimactic. Getting Hilary out was the hard part.
McCain’s level of support is not surprising given the irrational pull of nativism among conservative voters. Even dire economic circumstances are less important than cultural identity for the right. Can the culture be repaired at the ballot box? No. It rattles along its own course independent of our political rhetoric. Just ask Bristol Palin.
So, conservatism makes a case for traditional morality and deregulated markets, an untenable combination. It’s the principle flaw at the core of an incoherent ideology. The fragments of political nostalgia are useless when it comes to engaging reality.
McCain is the paladin of this nostalgia even though he was once its victim. He can no more address “the fierce urgency of now” than personify it symbolically. He’s a man of the American Century, not the one we’re currently living in. He’s going to lose today because there’s just enough youth in America to make the future matter more than the past.
Your words inspire me Mr. Talton!
I think the neo-cons will continue to legally hamstring and financially bind whoever gets into office, right up to when they leave their government offices. They truely have wrecked America and they are not done.
Another comment- If its true that Democracies always commit suicide, that would be because all societies do no matter what type of government they have nor what gods they claim protect them. Every government in place today is merely one that hasn’t failed yet.