The most recent 20 comments posted to Electrolite by Tappan Ki.ng:

I just posted this over on Daily Kos:

How Bush Lost

Wow. Weird. I just came here to post a comment with the header "How Bush Lost" in the next open thread. And here's the topic itself.
I believe George Bush and his whole gang of thugs have already lost this election.
But let me be clear what I'm saying.

My gut tells me that John Kerry will not be our next president, even though I believe that in a fair election, he would win. I hope my gut is wrong, but I'm not alone. A number of recent polls show that while a minority of Americans want Bush to be relected, a majority think he will.

What explains this, I think, is a deep understanding that Bush & Co are bastards who will do anything to win.

Like the rest of you, I have my own "October Surprise" scenario:

o Bin Laden turns up in Iran.
o Israel bombs Irani reactors from US carriers.
o Bush gets a "terror bounce"
o GOP operatives perpetrate widespread voting
machine fraud that not only tips states like
Minnesota, Iowa, and New Jersey, but also adds
a million or so votes in places like New York
and California to guarantee a popular
vote "landslide"
o A cluster of retaliatory "terrorist attacks"
in swing states on election day, perhaps with
a Beslan-style killing of school children.
o The FBI deputizes thousands of law enforcement
officers to impound the polls until the
crisis ends.
o When Democrats challenge the results, a
savage campaign of lawsuits, threats,
scaremongering and media manipulation pounds
the nation into exausted acceptance of
a Bush "victory."
o If all else fails, the Supreme Court steps in.

But I still believe Bush has already lost.

That's because I challenge the narrative of the last six years. That narrative says that America is divided evenly between liberals and conservatives, that the last four years have seen that balance tip slightly toward conservatives, and the next election will ratify that slow sea change.

What I think is true is that about 75 percent of Americans are moderate or liberal on most issues, and the "radical right" has been doing a brilliant job of mindfucking us to believe it's not true.

In this narrative, Al Gore won the 2000 by a significant margin, despite massive voter fraud on the part of the Republicans, and a one-billion dollar war chest.

And, despite holding all the cards, despite manipulation of our fears by exploiting, if not creating, the 9/11 attacks, despite iron control over the media, despite stacked opinion polls, more than half of us want him gone.

In short, they blew it.

If Kerry actually wins, the Right is likely to declare total war, and the next four years are going to be very ugly. We'll need to fight them harder than we ever have before.

But even if Bush is inaugurated next January, it won't change the fact that the country has rejected him, and everything he stands for. We don't have to wait for that. It's already happened.

We need to keep repeating that. Over and over. "The Emperor has no mandate."

And we need to take it to the streets.

If that sounds like magical thinking, I plead guilty as charged. I'm one of those people who believe that when John Lennon told us "War is Over," it helped to make it come true.

"Hit 'em in the funnybone,
That's where they expect it least."
-- "The Boss"

dis·in·gen·u·ous , adj.

1. Not straightforward or candid; insincere or calculating. 2. Pretending to be unaware or unsophisticated; faux-naïf.

"Our choice wasn't between a benign status quo and the bloodshed of war. It was between war and a graver threat. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Not our political opponents. And certainly not, certainly not, a disingenuous film maker who would have us believe that Saddam's Iraq was an oasis of peace ..."

Sen. John McCain, Republican National Convention, August 30, 2004

Xopher, of course you are right. "Means" meant "meant," as I used it above in re "kind," "gentle," and "noble." Though I do believe that noblesse oblige still means what I said above. Great leaders intuitively understand that they derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.

As Lao-Tzu put it:

"The fourth-best leaders are feared.
The third-best leaders are respected.
The second-best leaders are loved.
But the best leaders cause men to say:
'Look what I have done!' "

What, then, should we call the Bush Family philosophy? noblesse oubliee?

I actually like and admire John Kerry, and don't concur with the consensus here that he's a poor excuse for a liberal. My reading of twentieth century history is that when liberals do get elected president, they compromise on some hot button issues, then quietly go about the business of cutting more Americans in on the deal.

I also don't accept the "story" that Al Gore was a lackluster campaigner with no fire in his belly who failed to energize his party. What I saw was a charming, engaging man who won the hearts of a majority of voters despite the fact that A BILLION DOLLARS was spent to defeat him.

But the main reason I'm voting for Kerry is because I do map voting preferences along more than one axis. In this election, the choice isn't just between Left and Right, it's a choice between Up and Down -- decency and malevolence.

See, these Bush folks are bastards. Their cardinal operating principle is viciousness, and their motto is "Don't Fuck With Us." And what scares me most about that is not the damage they will do if they continue unchecked, but the thermonuclear karmic payback that will ultimately result from this unbridled arrogance.

Note that I use the word here "bastard" as a term of art. George W is my fifth cousin, and he comes from the same Mayflower stock that I do -- albeit with a shitload more money. If he were true to the values of the best of his class, he would be governed by noblesse oblige -- an idea that at its most basic means that great families can only hold onto great power by sharing it with those they govern. (Funny how most of our words for goodness carry this same origin: "kind" means "part of the herd," "gentle" means "a member of the clan," and "noble" simply means "us.")

In contrast to thugs like Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz et al, John Kerry seems to me a real gentleman. I'll pull the lever for him enthusiastically.

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