Get back to work

At one point early last evening, I turned to Madame Cura and, in my best pontificatorial voice said, "I've thought about this a long time. Bush simply can't win re-election. You cannot govern as he has -- ignoring or insulting half of the electorate while focused solely on your base -- and expect to win a second term. That logic may have worked in 2000, but after Sept. 11, 2001, when we were all begging for a more inclusive governing style and were instead slapped in the face, it simply won't stand."

Shit, was I ever wrong. I still wonder about those voting machines that, on the review screen, showed voters they'd voted for Bush when they thought they'd voted for Kerry. And, again, the provisional ballots must be counted. But if things stand it would appear Karl Rove and the Bush family/DeLay apparatus pulled it off, exactly as planned, and managed to solidify power in the House and Senate to boot.

The country remains stuck in amber, with little having changed since 2000 other than the fact that, somehow, Bush managed to eke out a victory in the popular vote.

In the meantime, read Meteor Blades's exhortation to "Don't Mourn, Organize."

Not a few people have spoken in the past few hours about an Americanist authoritarianism emerging out of the country’s current leadership. I think that’s not far-fetched. Fighting this requires that we stick together, not bashing each other, not fleeing or hiding or yielding to the temptation of behaving as if “what’s the use?”

Read the whole thing.

But I do have to admit, I feel a powerful urge to go to lower Manhattan, walk up to one of those ghoulish red state necrotourists gawking at the construction site that was once the World Trade Center, and smack each and every one of them in the face.