I've been thinking about this for a while, and whether Kerry wins or loses, I can't blame him for his campaign. Sure there were some stupid quotes, and his position on Iraq (most specifically, insisting he would have voted to give Bush the authority to go to war even knowing there were no WMD) didn't always make sense, but I think he ran he gave it his all and proved to us during the debates that he would make an excellent President. This was no Gore campaign; he did the right stuff.
Unfortunately, that leaves me with only one option: to be disappointed in my fellow Americans. And I am.
This is exactly why I was afraid of this election going to Bush. I've been happy with the way Kerry's been campaigning, and when he faces flak for something, it's usually a ridiculous reaction on the part of the media, not his own fault (see SBVFT). It's the process--mendacious campaign ads and a complacement media, and the people, who have given Bush victory. I hate to think about the implications of this.
Certainly, a number of would-be Kerry supporters were mislead by Bush's ads into thinking untrue things about Kerry. But that's probably true of a number of would-be Bush supporters as well. It's well documented Bush's campaign ads were more mendacious than Kerry's, but that's certainly a problem that lies on both sides of the party line.
But aside from those people, there are a lot of people who want Bush in office. Evidently, more than those who want him out of office. Those Bush supporters like him, probably, for one of the following reasons: they think the poor don't deserve health care, reasonable housing, or equal education, they care about their money more than the well-being of others, they value religion over science, they believe that the war in Iraq was a good thing, they (inexplicably) think the war on terror has been a success so far, they think they rich should pay just as much tax as the poor, and they believe that black and Native Americans already enjoy all the same advantages as whites or that they don't deserve those advantages.
I am honestly not sure whether I'm comfortable living in a country where the majority of citizens have a variety of the above traits. Sure, I like my home state of New York very well, and I'm sure I'd get along just fine in California, Illinois, or somewhere else in the Northeast. But because of the majority of the people in my country, I'm forced to contribute my tax dollars to a war I don't support, to Christian faith-based organizations (while I am an atheistic ethnic Jew), to politicians who oppress minorities at the polls, to a government that throws people in prison for years for nonviolent drug offenses, to a government that is almost certainly at this very moment torturing prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. Worse than anything, I have to pay for the insane and ineffective antiterror policies that may very well leave New York City vulnerable to a catastrophic attack in the next four years which would kill me, my parents, and my friends.
I'm not sure I can take it any more. I like the bastions of liberalism in NYC and San Francisco, but they are evidently outweighed by the repulsive conservatism of Birmingham and Crawford.
I may very well start looking for work in Canada after I graduate in a year and a half and then apply for citizenship. I have friends in Toronto who I've visited every year since I was a child, and they don't have to deal with this shit. They have other, far less objectionable, problems. I'm sick of paying for war, torture, and bigotry.
I will be really happy if someone can change my mind.