"Real America"

A prediction for you. Over the next four years, we're gonna hear a lot of bullshit about "Real America" and "Real Americans", a lot of it barely disguised cover for bigotry, like the eleven states that voted for constitutional bans on gay marriage. And what makes this bullshit work is that liberals and moderates don't argue it, they even sometimes believe it themselves. Driving a pickup truck and hunting isn't any more "Real America" than driving a compact car and shopping at an organic grocery. Because I'll let you in on a secret. There's no "Real America" outside of ideals. And these ideals are ones like freedom, justice, equality, powerful ideas that aren't restricted to blue states or red states. There's no place that's "Real America", when America includes California and Texas, Washington and Florida, Hawaii and Alaska, Massachusets and South Carolina. There's no "Real America", there's just Americans, who are people like everybody else. One of the biggest reasons Bush won, and now believes he has a "clear mandate" (with 51% of the vote. only 51%), is because everybody's afraid to call people on their bullshit, let them make Liberal a bad word, let them redefine issues to favor themselves. (e.g."Death Tax") Don't stay quiet in front of them, don't let them try and attribute their specific views to "Real America" or "Real Americans". We're all Real Americans, and it's time we stopped letting anybody pretend otherwise.

Another election observation

Now, there's a lot of triumphalism among Republican types, saying how the Democratic party is "doomed for oblivion" and suchlike, and reccomending that "they jettison the far left and move to the center".

Uh. There's only one little problem with that, the same problem with many of the current Republican party's ideas. It's just not true.

In the election, Bush won among self-described conservatives.

Kerry, on the other hand, won with self-described liberals and moderates.

The problem isn't the Democratic party was "too far to the left", Kerry lost because Bush somehow mobilized a lot more conservatives, and fooled enough other people into thinking he was competent to run the "War on Terror" to pull out a bare, squeaking majority.

What the Democratic party needs to do is even more of what was done this year, stop letting the Republicans define things and stand for what they believe in. FOR something, not just "not as bad as the Republicans". Which Kerry and others started to hit on, but not soon enough, or often enough, or hard enough. Torture is not an American value. Rounding people up and deporting them on flimsy pretexts isn't an American value. 75% of Bush's voters didn't know what he actually stood for. It's a matter of making it clear what you stand for, and making it clear what the other guy stands for.

Nano in the cross hairs

Okay, so. I've got to decide here. I can keep trying to write the goofy thing I was working on before, or I can write something else. If I have the stomach to write something else right now. If I did something else, it'd probably be a Fors story, or a possible future. And no, not the happy kind, most of those doorways are shut for now.

So, goofy, ferret of anger and funny mixed, or straight out raw rage, if anything? I have to think.

Nano Update

Well, going with the original one for now, I think. Tempting as a nice little ranty ferret thing would be. Though now I'm about two days behind, but ah well. I'll probably write more tonight, but I try and give an update for before midnight for that day. Just for simplicity.