Okay, I know I'm violating #3 up there, but there's a general trend going on right now I think we need to reverse.
What is that? The 'the election was close, Bush has no mandate, we gained strength in this area or that, Bush just had better GOTV, etc.'
This thinking fits into the normal grieving process: Denial. Bargaining. Anger. Despair. Acceptance. But, I think we are falling into another Republican trap. Not only do they work the media, they work us too, and they are doing it, here's how...
I bet alot of Republicans around the country are starting to wake up with bad hangovers over this election. While they voted for less taxes for the rich, an activist military policy in the Middle East, etc, they are waking up to find Bush largely owes his reelection to the religious right, and he is going to waste his 'political capital' on the religious right issues, not theirs. They know like those Jesus Freaks out on Saturday night with thier 'You are going to Burn in Hell' signs at the movie theatres, it doesn't take long for the majority of rational minded people to get pissed off by them.
What should they do about this then? Talk about 'ooh, this election was a squeaker, Bush just won on the incumbency rule, the Democrats actually gained strength in certain areas. The main thinkers of the Republican party, the people more concerned with power over any particular issue, are just as afraid of the Bush 'mandate' as we are.
AND WE ARE FEEDING RIGHT INTO THEM!
What we on the left need to continue to do is lament and gnash our teeth! Woah is me! The country has been taken over my the American Taliban! Oh! Religious Conservatives crushed us! Bush can do whatever the Religious Right wants now! We are powerless to stop them! Yes people! Push it! Milk it! Let the Jonah Goldbergs out there be the ones saying 'No, Bush only won by 3%, it's not that big of a victory!'.
Now people may think that will only embolden the Religious Right and Bush to push their issues. I say, let them. Let the next 4 years be defined by gay people kissing and women's uteruses. By the time 2008 rolls around, the Democrats will seem like a Disney movie compared to the Republican porno.
Now people may say, well what if they win? They won't. As scared as we may be, I doubt abortion will ever really be banned. If it does, it will set off a vast period of Democratic political dominance sort of like how the South never voted for a Republican for over 100 years after Lincoln freed the slaves, and that political dominance will simply reverse it.
Gay Marriage? No. I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for quite some time, and what people need to realize is that while alot of gay people live here, the vast majority of people here aren't gay. At the risk of people labeling me a 'closet troll' or 'agent of the FreePers', I'll go so far as to say I do not like seeing two men kissing. And while it does fuel 90% of male sexual fantasies, after seeing the women who do the kissing of other women in reality, I really don't like seeing two women kiss either. And the vast majority of people in the Bay Area aren't much different from me. And before you label me a homophobe, ask any gay person if they like watching a man and a woman kiss. They don't.
What's the point? Homosexuality has been around since the beginning of the human race, and it is prevalent in nature also. It's not going away. They are here, and they are queer, and we do have to get used to it, but we don't necessarily have to like it. What the Bay Area has learned is to keep from seeing two men kissing, it's a whole lot easier to give them what they want than to fight it. I realized this earlier this year with Gavin Newsome allowing gay people to marry in SF. All of a sudden, the news was awash in images of bearded men and biker mamas locking lips with other bearded men and biker mamas. My first reaction was 'argh! What do they want! Give it to them, please! Get them off TV!'. It does help that their demands aren't really that big of a deal and things we're usually shocked they don't have already. They want to be able to keep their job, to keep their rented apartment, not get beaten up by groups of confused men using violence as a way to release their latent homosexuality. Now they want a part of an institution most heterosexuals are learning they can do without. Big deal, let them have it if it keeps bearded men french kissing off the evening news.
They aren't going to go away. Those of us on the left know that homosexuality is not a choice, that they can't stop being who they are. The more the other side pushes, the more gay people you are going to see french kissing on TV. How we learned to deal with it in the Bay Area is to just give them what they want and let them live their lives in peace, and it really doesn't affect our lives one way or another. As much as the Religious Right pushes the issue, the more they keep two men kissing on the TV, and the more people start realizing those two men are going to kiss whether its on TV or not, and the way to get it off the TV is just give them whatever they want. Tolerance and human expression is the future of human society, reactionism and bigotry is not. We all know in 50 years or so people are going to look back at this election and cringe at the thought of people not being able to freely choose who they want to be with, the same way we look at segregation. That's the future, we will win in the long run.
But we need to let the Religious Right blow their wad. Let them get emboldened with talk about a Bush religious mandate. We need to fan the flames. Just like in many aspects Osama Bin Laden is Bush's biggest ally, our biggest ally needs to be the Religious Right. Give them their crushing victory, let Bush try to outlaw homosexuality or take away a woman's control over her own body. In the long run, we know we will be victorious, and in 4 years, the Democratic candidate for President will be able to step in and say 'I have a plan for getting all the bearded men kissing on your TVs off the TV - we'll just give them what they want and be done with the whole nonsense.'