Didn't Vote for Dubya

To be clear, I tried to vote for G. Dubya but the Travis County Elections Commissioner found various problems with my absentee ballot that could not be rectified in time. I even called the Registrar several times, but they were so dysfunctional that no one ever returned my calls or e-mails. I suppose I could cry ‘voter disenfranchisement’ but I prefer to accept personal responsibility for my actions, and I’m not willing to threaten the foundations of our fragile democracy by undermining public trust in the system. Besides, I can’t say that I’m all that disappointed – it has really protected me from the Bush-haters, as I'll explain later. To my Democratic friends: I know that you’re disappointed by the recent election, and since I don’t want you to remove this blog from your collection of bookmarks, I’ll refrain from any expressions of joy or any biting political analysis. I’ll simply describe what it was like watching election returns from thousands of miles away. First, the level of interest in the American election surprised me. Bush v. Kerry led the news for weeks and on election night it seems that people all over London were intently watching live coverage of the returns. I decided to join the international students at Lilian Penson Hall as they threw an election gala, complete with mock voting and lectures on the American electoral system. It was especially fun to watch students from Eastern Europe complain about America’s ‘backward’ electoral college while suggesting that America might benefit from their more enlightened systems. I should tell you that I decided to leave my New Balance shoes in the room, so I could blend in without people knowing I was an American (you can spot Americans a mile away by their New Balance shoes… no one else in the world wears them, despite the superior design and quality). Since there are two television lounges in the residence hall, I decided to join a large throng of Boston kids – when asked for whom I voted for, I responded, “Well, I sure didn’t vote for Bush.” This immediately endeared me to the Bostonians and relieved that awful tension that lingers in the room when someone finds out you’re a conservative. The Dems were elated because of exit polling, as reported by the BBC, which suggested a total Bush Whacking. When Pennsylvania went to Kerry, and the Democratic love-fest was at its zenith, an Albanian doctoral student sat next to me and struck up a conversation about the dangers of evangelical Christianity. He was in London working on a thesis about America’s Religious Right and how this movement closely mirrors the rise of fascism in Nazi Germany. Now Mom, I want you to know how much I have matured over the past few years – I remained silent for the entire ‘conversation’ (a one-man lecture that lasted for an entire hour). The most painful part was toward the end, when this man told me that evangelical Christians are no different than Al Qaeda and the Taliban. He suggested that these ‘born-again’ nuts are extremely dangerous and will need to be ‘dealt with’ one day, before they become violent. That’s right hippy!, and when the revolution comes you’ll be the first one with your back against the wall! Huahaha!

Later that night, or morning actually, Florida was called for the President and the Bostonians started chain smoking (the string of curse words pouring from their mouths would make Richard Nixon blush). I try to live by the creed ‘hate the smoke, love the smoker’, but I just couldn’t handle the secondhand miasma and decided to go to the other television room. When I entered it became obvious that this was Al Jazeera election coverage – the room was full of Arab students talking about the election and when I entered, the room became dead quiet. I sat down to watch the TV and tried not to focus on the fact that everyone in the room was staring at me. One of the older guys asked me if I was an American, which is unfortunate since the Travis County Elections Commissioner hadn’t in any way challenged my citizenship. My affirmative response quite naturally brought the follow-up question of whom did you vote for, to which I replied, “Well, I sure didn’t vote for Bush.” The tension remained, however, and after a few minutes silence the same guy said, “No matter who wins, I will always hate America.” I really wish I knew where the guy was from, because I was going to say, for example if he was from Jordan, “That’s interesting, because no matter what happens, I will always love Jordan and the Jordanian people.” Instead I just sat there dumbfounded and excused myself from the room. As soon as I left it exploded into conversation again. Seriously, who actually lives with that much hate in their hearts? These are the future leaders of the Arab world?! I decided that secondhand smoke wasn’t that bad after all, and went back to the Bostonian room. I almost revealed myself by accident when the news reports came in about a probable Tom Daschle defeat in South Dakota. My facial expressions are so often subconscious that I’m not aware of them until it’s too late. When I heard that Daschle was trailing in the vote count it was several minutes before I realized that there was a huge grin plastered on my face. I managed to correct it and look properly solemn before anyone noticed. When Fox/NBC called Ohio for the President, the Bostonians finally became so despondent that they decided to drink themselves into apathy and the room cleared of all the depressed Eastern Europeans. At 7am there was just one other person – a guy I had never seen before who was wearing New Balance shoes. He looked at me quizzically and said, “So, I guess you’re pretty disappointed by the election.” To which I replied, “I’m OK. I guess you’re pretty disappointed.” We both busted out laughing, and the guy from Indiana said, “Oh, thank God there’s another Republican here!” We spent the next hour expressing joy and sharing biting political analysis, which true to my word, shall not appear in this blog. The next day the London ‘papers’ were scathing in their response to the election (see above photo, and actually it’s 60,480,957 as of 11/15/04). Contrary to popular European political opinion, the reelection of Dubya hasn’t yet caused the end of the world. Though, we should keep a watchful eye on those dangerous evangelicals… Grace & Peace.