Vacuous Populi

"George Bush IS your president. Sulking petulantly won't help it. Protesting won't help it. You can't say that you are open minded and then disregard what half of the nation has to say."
— Monk Universe, "Politics Again"

It's poignant remarks like this one that people tend to ignore most readily, at great loss to themselves and those around them. Combine the recent neck-and-neck presidential elections with last week's highest voter turnout in decades and you've got the makings for some potent social commentary: Americans disagree with each other. Yet the division is artificial. There are two factions because there are two major political parties. If there were three parties, there would eventually be three different groups of people bitching about how the other two are pure evil and ruining this country.

The fact remains: you can't say that you are open minded and then disregard what half the nation has to say. This is as much a chastisement for the left as it is a warning for the right. Unfortunately, I feel that the President will carry out his second term ignoring those who disagree with him just as much as he did in his first term, if not more. Signs are good that John Ashcroft's resignation will open the door for a more moderated cabinet and even-handed policy decisions.

But don't count on it.

I'm not being partisan when I say that the President likes to live in his own little world where no one dissents. It is a well-documented fact that his administration likes to specially choose audiences when the President, or Vice President, gives a speech. Restricting access to people wearing pro-Kerry clothing? Totally expected. Demanding entrants provide documentation that they are registered Republicans? Creepy. Behavior like this makes you wonder if the President isn't completely convinced that he is a uniter-not-a-divider, since he's isolated himself from hearing any argument that he isn't.

He's drinking his own Kool-Aid, if you will.

I am continually struck dumb by the actions of people who seem to have never heard the phrase "those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it". Let's see. When was the last time a U.S. President from Texas got involved in a long-running land war in a faraway land that had no clear objectives? Lyndon Johnson made – and this is history judging him here, not me – very poor decisions in Vietnam in part because he just didn't want to hear bad news. This isn't an exaggeration: he literally did not want to hear bad news at the morning briefing. So everyone put on their rose-colored glasses to keep the Chief Executive from throwing a hissy fit. And darned if he couldn't figure out why we hadn't won yet and Ho Chi Minh wasn't baking us apple pie in gratitude.

You can't say that you are open minded and then disregard what half the nation has to say. Keep these words true and you will always make the right choice because you will finally begin to think about things as "us and them" and not "us versus them".