SPIRIT OF 76?

FOR POSTERITY OR AS A POST MORTEM

11/04/08 – Seattle, Washington
By the time you folks are reading this, the election returns will likely be in. As I write this, they are not. I’m not thinking about winners or losers. I’m thinking about how the game was played. I’m also not just reflecting on the politicians but on the slice of constituency I’ve experienced offline in a neighbourhood comprised mostly of University of Washington students and faculty, working people and the mercantile infrastructure. I’m also thinking about several online chatrooms I frequent and which, by the demographics of their regulars, represent not only most of America, but a slice of Canada, the UK and Europe, as well.

I’ll be 60 this March and I cannot recall an election which brought out more of the worst in some and the best in some others. Offline, we don’t discuss politics that much and when we do, it’s always an unemotional "force field" analysis. Name calling, lying and defaming candidates or people of opposing parties is simply considered rude because it’s non-productive. It’s also embarrassing to witness. We have an innate sense of human dignity which may be passe east of the Mississippi but which forms a cornerstone of not only our political philosophy and world view, but the way we behave toward one another. To put it bluntly, regardless of who wins an election, we still have to live with one another as family, friends, neighbours and community.

There was a particularly rabid viciousness to the online constituency I witnessed. It was savage, vile, profane and, for the most part, extremely unimaginative. It involved personal attacks which had nothing to do with the issues at hand or the qualifications of the candidates involved. It presumed an inherent superiority of one party over another that was nothing more than another aspect of the national arrogance. We castigated George Bush when he turned out to be wrong, but when he wanted to play Patton in his race to the Rhine to avenge 9/11, we cheered him on. He took that, rightfully, as mandate and became not president, but monarch. It didn’t take a coup to put him on the throne. It took the constituency.

Since, by birth I am also a member of the International Community, I was ashamed of the conduct I witnessed. I am just as American as anyone born here and I was brought up in Northern California by Americans. I’m a Vietnam veteran, a journalist who has covered politics in three states and someone who has organised and run two political campaigns. My coverage was unbiased and the campaigns I ran were clean ones. Neither would have been possible without a constituency which demanded that level of integrity and eschewed the crap that doth make hypocrites of us all.

Regardless of who is inaugurated in January, Capitol Hill will remain. There will be no rioting in the streets, no Stalineque purges, no calling for heads to roll. The government will go on because that is what THIS government does. McCain is no more the devil than Obama. And regardless of who emerges victorious, the "vanquished" will still be a member of the Senate in good-standing, with the gratitude of his peers and supporters for giving it his all.

My concern is for the constituency and who they will blame next for their troubles in their race to escape personal responsibility. I will also be wondering what happened to the words of the people, by the people and for the people.
I wonder what the framers of the Constitution, many war veterans of the bravest experiment since the Magna Carta, would think of us now.