Voting 2004: This time it’s personal
The spinning and selling, they say, the doublespeak and dissembling, have managed not just to sway and confuse as political operatives intended, but to set neighbor on neighbor. (“Red states, blue states — we’re a nation of gang colors,” one political scientist observed sadly last week.)
A Bush-backing Marine recruit was charged with trying to stab his girlfriend in the neck with a screwdriver after she threatened to leave him and vote for John Kerry.
Nor will any of this heal after the election. There will be an internal blood bath in whichever party loses, and the national polarization will continue and widen.
The coming decade of turbulence
We are about to enter in to a turbulent decade of politics, to which the last few years have been a kind of prequel. With differences recessed because of a national shock of 911, and with the fading glow of the boom that people looked back to in hope – the amount of agitation in comparison to what we have experienced – a panic followed by a depression that is being staved off, but not cured, by a borrowing binge – we have watched and waited.
It’s about to change, and this election is going to be the kick off for it.
People get ready…