This is an open letter written to non-Americans (and Americans) by an embarrassed and ashamed American citizen and voter on the eve of the 2004 election for President.
George W. Bush is easily the worst U. S. President since well before Richard Nixon, who tried to thwart the electoral process but at least understood foriegn policy to help bridge East and West.
What made me vote against Bush last time was my fear about the Justice Department growing more repressive in interpreting the law, because the highest levels of our courts have their Judges appointed by Presidents.
Then I was horrified by the illegitimate 2000 election, in which Democratic voters were systematically disenfranchised by a variety of means, and in which the Supreme Court voted along strict party lines to put Bush in office.
When he told us that we had to trust him about going to war with Iraq, because they had weapons of mass destruction and posed a direct eminent threat to our own security, I did so and supported the war. Countries have often had to rally when they were under attack. But I distinctly remember what he told us then, and when I learned he lied I wish some higher authority could remove him from office.
Instead, I watched him satisfy Osama bin Laden’s wish for a cause to ignite war between Islam and the West, and watched him turn the billion or so more moderate Muslims of the world largely against us, and give them incentive to move toward the militant anti-Western side of what is nearly a civil war in Islam. And I watched him disappoint, frustrate, and baffle almost all of our traditional allies with his arrogance and disdain, and prove to the world what an unpredictable threat to peace and stability the United States can be.
He has turned back 30 years of environmental protection and improvement, and for what? A few hundreds of millions in campaign donations from energy companies?
He gave us the No Child Left Behind Act, easily the most destructive movement in education in generations. Did you know that it requires schools to give the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of students to military recruiters?
He gave us the Patriot Act, which seems to me to tread on about a third of the Bill of Rights. Our founding fathers argued about whether the Bill of Rights was even needed, some saying that obviously if we could elect our own leaders we wouldn’t elect any who would restrict such rights - ah, but that gets back to an electoral process that works. Bush remembers that it is easy to get the people to follow their leaders by questioning the patriotism of their opponents (as Hermann Goering once said).
So I started early this year, reading and studying. I donated money to the Kerry campaign. I bought books, and read them, and lent them out, especially to undecided voters in nearby Pennsylvania, a swing state. I bought Michael Moore’s film, which is absolutely horrifying even if you choose to believe only the parts where Bush himself is speaking to the camera, and kept that circulating around also. As I have tried hard to understand the world around me, these things seem to be minimal ethical requirements.
And I have heard again and again from non-Americans that, though they deplore Bush and his administration, they realize a distinction between the American people and the Bush administration. Many have been sympathetic that we did not really elect him in a proper sense.
And so here is the shameful part of this letter. It is now just 12 hours before the polls open here in the Eastern United States (I live less than an hour’s drive from the White House). And the experts are almost clueless about which man will win.
How can this be happening?
How can the most venal, incurious administration in decades have any chance of reelection?
How can even a large minority of the American people consider telling the world that George Bush has our blessing as leader?
Of course I hope that Bush loses. I hope the Republican poll interveners, and the court challenges to Democratic voters and minority voters are unsuccessful. I hope the large fraction of new voters without landline phones, who have not been polled, are voting for change. I hope international observers watch like hawks. I even hope they shame the US into reforming our electoral process so that future elections come closer to all the votes being counted and each one being weighted equally.
But if Bush wins, in the terrible and embarrassing case that Bush wins, I hope that everyone outside the United States will understand that a great many Americans did not endorse him as President, and did not mean to send to the world the crazy and obnoxious message that we support his administration.
Though, to be fair, if he loses, everyone may also understand that many Americans did mean to send exactly that message.
This is a very embarrassing time to be American.
