Jesse Lee, OpEdNews.Com
In the national melee preceding the war in Iraq, fanatical Bushism seemed a force as overwhelming and prevalent as fanatical Islam. Here inside the beltway, and I think in most locations along the coasts, this phenomenon was somewhat mind-boggling. Although war advocates could certainly be found, overhearing a conversation on the subway about Bush's lies was a much more common occurrence than hearing a conversation about the catastrophe Saddam's weapons would bring or avenging 9/11. Thomas Friedman echoed what I heard from countless casual acquaintances and haphazard encounters when he said, "I hardly know a single person that wants this war".
Most of us were reduced in our confusion to vain attempts to imagine what could possibly be going on in the "red states" of the 2000 election map. What kind of social atmosphere was accounting for the staggering numbers of Bush's supporters? I got a few answers from readers in the Heartland, whom I have to say now have represented the bravest, and I dare say most patriotic souls in our nation. And I'll also note that I use the word "patriot" as little as possible- in fact this is almost certainly the first time I've put it in writing.
I give them this outstanding commendation because those readers who emailed me, representing a small sampling of that already small population in the heartland that recognized and took exception at the lies of their president, depicted a social environment so hostile and intolerant to their views that those of us protesting proudly down Pennsylvania Avenue could scarcely comprehend it. I repeatedly read stories of attempts to mount protests in the town centers of communities in Missouri, Nebraska, etc., which were met with such rage and hatred that the participants were literally afraid to voice their opinions in public afterwards.
How powerful was fanatical Bushism? Well, it reduced over 300 proud and often egomaniacal Republican Senators and Congressmen, most of whom have been in Washington years if not decades longer than Bush, to the status of humiliated White House interns marching in lockstep. It has been almost universally accepted that these Republicans gladly conceded to this role for the power that it would grant to the party, but this perception misses the resentment that has been brewing at being relegated to role of administration minions. It was common language in the media to speak of Republicans "staying in line", and it was not rare to read a story in the Washington Post describing ways in which Senators had been disciplined and punished by the administration for even the slightest deviations. This power play from the administration culminated in Dick Cheney's formation of a pseudo-organization, the "Club For Growth", whose main function ended up being to produce slanderous advertisements against Republican Senators who showed reservations about the massive size of Bush's tax cuts, which were run on television in the Senators' home states. Only now is there beginning to be a backlash against this humiliation, as demonstrated by the revolt of the biggest ego (and bastard) in Congress, Tom Delay, over reinstating the child tax credit for the working poor. When a reporter asked Delay to respond to an Ari Fleischer comment that the President saw reinstating the credit as an urgent priority for Congress, Delay said snidely, "Well last I checked, he doesn't have a vote". On the Senate side, perhaps the biggest factor in making the WMD story legitimate instead of being dismissed entirely as "partisan nonsense" or "revisionist history" is the fact that a handful of Republican Senators, particularly John Warner of Virginia have stood up and made clear that they still value their roles as members in what is supposed to be the most powerful branch of government, and that as such it is still an egregious offense to willfully mislead them.
So what does this indicate? That perhaps fanatical Bushism is not quite the force it either used to be, or appeared to be. And this should be a clue for Democrats and for those of us who wish to see an end to the hate-filled polarization the administration has crafted for our country. While there are certainly many in the Heartland who view Bush as the great white evangelical soldier, and who will fight with all of the tenacity of the KKK to eliminate criticism from the local political discourse, there are many more who simply trusted Bush and believed what he had to say. For them, the fanaticism came from Fox News talking heads, Clear Channel pro-war ralliers, and televangelists such as Falwell and Robertson who told them that the left was anti-American and filled with contempt for them. The left mistakenly did very little to understand their point of view, and rather fed into the polarization by restricting themselves to calling Bush and his supporters liars and worse, and insisting that the weapons were not a threat. This was exactly the fight Bush wanted to have, since his bully pulpit allowed him to muddy the waters more than enough to give people who now ideologically wanted to support him the fodder they needed to feel contempt for the protesters.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the anti-war movement missed the boat. Had they tried to speak to the Heartland in the language that Bush had given them, rather than feeding into the polarization, the battle for public opinion might have been won. If they had insisted that even if the weapons were there, invading would make certain Hussein would use them against us rather than eliminating that threat, a connection might have been made. If the left had made clear that anyone fearing WMD should oppose the war, a common ground might have been found.
And now, once again, the biggest story in the country is falling through the ideological cracks- and it is the exact same story. The BBC commendably did a story on the Heartland some time in the second week of June. They interviewed a handful of "simple country folk", asking them what they thought about the WMD story. The most poignant comment was repeated twice: they still believed that the weapons existed, but they were seriously concerned about where exactly they were and whether they were on their way to America right now. No s**t. And yet, as the left has concentrated on the possible non-existence of the weapons, and the Sean Hannity's have displayed their hollow hypocrisy by declaring the threat eliminated, nobody is bothering to report on what may now finally be a legitimate threat. If there are weapons, then Bush has put us in our most perilous position to date, and we have just committed hundreds of billions of dollars, and still mounting American and Iraqi casualties, only to make ourselves a thousand times less secure. This is the understandable suspicion, or at least the reservation of many in the Heartland, and it is the middle ground on which we need to reunite this country. Use Bush's language, and turn it against him.
For our Heartland readers, I now also have a special request. To recognize the enormously underreported plight of Bush critics in the lion's den, and to educate those of us on the coasts about your reality, I am attempting to compile an article, or possibly a series of articles documenting what it has been like in the heartland over the past year and a half. If you have any anecdotes or insights that can be summed up in a paragraph or two, or three, please email them to me at the address below, ideally with the word "Heartland" as the subject. All contributions will be very much appreciated, and I will make sure to get back to you with a response. Thanks in advance.
Jesse Lee is a recent graduate of Trinity College in Hartford with a degree in Political Science and Philosophy. He works as a paralegal in Washington, D.C. where he was born and raised. He also volunteers with MoveOn and The Education for Peace in Iraq Center (EPIC). He encourages your comments at kirkout79@hotmail.com. This article, first published by OpEdNews.Com , is copyright Jesse Lee, but permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media so long as this credit is attached.
