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Barnes in Commonthe magazine of Churches Together in Barnes
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Immoral Majority?by Guy CollinsIt was an authentically American result. Much had been done to prevent a repeat of the 2000 election. Republicans had tried to suppress the minority vote; Democrats had launched a massive voter registration drive. In swing states, like Pennsylvania where Kristin and I live, you could not turn on the television without seeing negative ads from both parties. On the ground there was a vast groundswell of opinion against the incumbent with three million more Americans voting for John Kerry than had voted for Al Gore four years before. And yet eight million more Americans voted for George Bush and Dick Cheney than did in 2000. It was a race of striking similarities. Both candidates are millionaires from elite families. Both candidates went to Yale where they were members of the same secret society. And neither candidate had a plan for removing America from the military, economic, moral and political disaster that is Iraq. John Kerry repeatedly told voters "I have a plan", but it was never explained. By contrast, George Bush was stubborn about the need to 'see things through'. In effect his argument was, 'better the devil you know'. What was interesting about this race was how people voted against their natural socio-economic interests. This is not to say the wealthy did not vote Republican. They did. But so did the poor. Overwhelmingly. In a country that has over forty million people with no real health care coverage you would expect the popular vote to have gone to the man who was offering to reform this – Kerry – and to go to the man who wanted to prevent corporations from shipping jobs overseas and creating unemployment – Kerry again. Instead, votes were cast by the poor and by the middle class against their economic interests. The moral majority are really the ones who won the election. Not Bush or Cheney, so much as those who want the States to be run along lines of conservative religious morality. For those of us who have a progressive and inclusive view of religion this is bewildering – and seriously bad news. In America there is meant to be a church and state division that keeps religion out of politics. Sadly, though, it does not keep politicians out of religion. Both Kerry and Bush tried to play on their religious convictions. But only Bush could appeal to the conservative majority. Unlike Britain that is a deeply (and beloved by me for this) secular society, America has no common culture. It is a land of extremes. While there are parts that are secular, the overwhelming majority of Americans take their religion far more seriously than we British (including those of us who are people of faith) could ever imagine. I have to be honest and say that this election result scares me. George Bush has presided over one of the most right-wing governments ever. By re-electing him, the American people have chosen to sacrifice their own needs for social justice, economic justice, environmental justice, educational justice and international justice on the altar of religious bigotry. There is no doubt that the issue of gay marriage acted as a rallying point for Bush's supporters in the churches of the American heartland. Many states had placed an amendment to ban gay marriage on their ballots, and there is no doubt that this helped frame the election for the conservative 'moral' vote. Instead of voting with their heads or their wallets, people voted with their selectively edited bibles and their fear of difference. I remember a quaint British tradition in which each party would produce an Election Manifesto describing its proposed policies. Despite the fact that some 1.2 billion dollars was spent by both parties in the US no similar document exists. The truth of the matter is that elections in the US are not about real things. Instead they are just another form of reality TV. Running for President is the ultimate form of celebrity showdown; so long as the candidate has a home-spun smile it doesn't really matter if he is a serial liar. This double standard of morality is confusing – but you misunderstand American politics unless you realise that running for President is show business in its purest form. This time the red team, Bush-Cheney won. The voters didn't really know about the real issues. And they didn't really need to. All they needed to know was the slogan of the red team: vote for us or your worst fears will come true. Sadly for almost half the US population, Bush's victory is their own worst fear: a 'fear factor' with which the whole world remains saddled. The Reverend Dr Guy Collins is Rector of St. John's Episcopal Church Huntingdon Valley, Philadelphia |
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