The spirit of war subsides
Last evening in America … the spirit of war subsided, with its procession of speculating Texas oilmen and maniacal fundamentalists.
The unpopularity of President Bush, anger at the faltering war in Iraq and disgust at the proliferating scandals that have engulfed the Republican Party in the last two years combined to produce a veritable earthquake that will have far-reaching implications for US policy and politics.
America thinks itself good at war and is bad at it. America thinks itself bad at democracy and is good at it, very good.
The main impact of these elections, I suspect, will be to give a shot in the arm to the left, who needed to see the Republicans get beaten. And everyone knows why they were beaten: the war and the economy. You can’t separate those issues, and people know it. They know that the same administration that is plundering the US treasury is also plundering Iraq, to put it as simply as that. So, whatever one thinks of the Democrats, and however little one expects from the American political system as a whole, this is an advance for the left, and an opportunity too.
The progressives in this country have intercepted the ball.
Now we have to run with it.