From "United We Stand" to "Divided We Are"

Inroads, Summer 2004 by Bergstrom, Hans

"They stole the election of 2000. They would like to steal it once more, using corruptible electronic voting machines."

Ruth Pleva is chair of the Committee to Defeat Bush in Palm Beach and Broward counties in south Florida. She is rallying support at a meeting, at Florida Atlantic University in late 2003, to protest the introduction of Florida's new voting machines. A computer engineer has been called in to testify that the touch-screen machines, to be introduced in the 2004 election, can be manipulated. Therefore, he says, people should generate printouts of their votes so that they can be recounted.

Emotions are running high. A videotape is shown, reminding us how the Republicans "stole" the presidency. When Florida secretary of State Katherine Harris - instrumental in resolving the 2000 election - appears on the screen, she is greeted with a chorus of boos from the audience of several hundred people.

We are all asked to join in a song entitled "Bye, Bye Bushie," filled with personal insults toward the President. On a Democratic website, 1,500 such songs can be found: "Crackpot Insane Gang," "Warmonger Moron" and "Hey, Bush is Their Monkey" are among the gentler titles. The home page greets you with an introduction to the President: "Hated by millions at home, despised by billions abroad." The site reports almost a million visitors.

The meeting nears its climax. Our local representative ins Congress, Robert Wexler, has led the attack against Florida's new voting system and he opens with a few words on that issue. He then moves on to Bush. "I cannot look at this President," he declares. His dislike stems from the 2000 election, which, he says, was stolen by Bush and the Republicans: "Up until September 10, 2001, I had incredible disdain, nothing but disdain, for George W Bush. I couldn't look at him on television. I had to sit in the back of the room for the State of the Union address, because I didn't want to be anywhere near him." seeing him at a ceremony after the terrorist attack "was the first time I even looked at him as if he was President of the United States."

But that changed perspective lasted only eight or nine months: "We gave him the unity that America requires at a time of crisis. And how has he repaid the country? He has repaid the country in the last 12 months by abusing that unity. By taking the respect for the office that we ultimately provided to him and turning it into what we now know was a war based on false pretences."

Wexler's disdain for the President extends to domestic issues. "Worst of all," he tells his audience, made up mostly of retirees, is the new prescription drug plan, "the single worst, most evil, most devious piece of legislation that in my lifetime has ever been passed by the United States Congress." He cites the lack of price controls, which he describes as "giveaways to the big drug companies."

Away from Clinton centrism

When Howard Dean first emerged as the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, he surprised observers by the degree of anger he was able to mobilize. The base of the Democratic Party not only opposed the President's policies but hated the man with a passion. Dean drew on that sentiment, organized it and energized it, claiming to represent "the democratic wing of the Democratic Party."

The "Washington Democrats" - who for the most part voted in favour of giving the President authority to go to war in Iraq and compromised on issues like the "No Child Left Behind" education bill - were caught by surprise. But they gradually came to accept the current sentiment of their party and, with the sole exception of Joe lieberman, got "angry" themselves. Dean lost the nomination, mainly because of his stumbling on Saddam Hussein ("America is not safer with Saddam caught") and Osama bin Laden ("a jury should decide if he is guilty"), which made him look unelectable. Still, the party has clearly moved in his direction - more "angry," left-leaning and populist on economic issues than it has been in years. The centrist positions of Bill Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council - free trade, tax stimulus for entrepreneurship, tough policies on crime, accountability in education, tighter rules for welfare, use of force against rogue states, maintaining a certain independence from unions and other organized interest groups - have been replaced with the more traditional policies and alliances of the Democratic base.

What is the basis for this rather unexpected development? After all, America is a nation in peril - at war, according to the President. Patriotism increased after September 11, 2001, as domestic disputes seemed less important in a time of imminent threats to the security of the American people. "United We Stand" was seen on posters all over America. The midterm election of 2002 sent a clear message that security was the preeminent concern of the American people. The economy has shown exceptional resilience after the collapse of the Internet Bubble, with productivity gains of 5 per cent two years in a row. This is its strongest performance in half a century and something Europe can only hope for. It seemed certain that Bush's red states and Gore's blue states had been transformed into the red, white and blue United States.