INTERNATIONAL, U.S.A., COMMENTARY: Thoughts on the American Presidential Election
By Jerry Ding
Established by the Founding Fathers, the American democracy today is facing grave problems and criticisms. It's not beyond mortal eyes to see that the recent presidential election was, to some extent, ruled by companies rather than communities.
People are questioning whether this Bush Administration is still the government promised by Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg--a government of the people, by the people and for the people. Although it is still Thomas Jefferson's statue standing in Washington D.C., not Stalin's or Hitler's. However, tyranny comes always in silence.
Let's take a brief look at the 2004 presidential election: in history, when the two candidates run at almost the same pace in the polls, the most decisive votes turn out to be from the so-called "Swing States." Actually this is exactly what happened between Kerry and Bush this year. But one thing was different--Bush and his advisers didn't build their strategy around winning the "swings," on the contrary, Bush turned to the rightists, who enthusiastically support him and his plans for America.
As we all know, Bush's legacy will depend on whether he can stabilize Iraq and get the troops home. Americans, including the rightists, know that these tasks won't be easy to accomplish. So, Bush's strategy was, accordingly, to agitate the radical Christian rightists using their patriotism, convincing them that America is "bound to lead the world" and that all whom die in Iraq will not die in vain, that they die for a grand reason: National Security.
Kerry had to admit, although not in public, that Bush was using the right strategy because once the radical conservatives are grasped tightly, the "swings" will be much easier to deal with. The main reason for this situation, perhaps even the principal drawback to American Democracy, is the voting rate. Bush didn't care about the swings in the first place because he had anticipated and was prepared for a voting turnout that might not be as good as many experts predicted.
We'd need a PhD in math to totally clarify this point but, according to just the basic numbers, out of the whole population, about 58,500,000 people voted for Bush and about 55,000,000 people voted for Kerry. This means that the other half of Americans were just sitting in their living rooms watching reruns of the debates on television.
It's the sociologists' duty to find out why these people are not interested in politics, why they don't care about who's going to move into the White House. But what we care about is that following this trend, can Mr. Jefferson's democracy--which I believe is the most perfect one in the world--long endure?
Americans are not enjoying the political freedom that they used to because Bush claimed that, to ensure national security, individual freedoms must sometimes be diminished or even sacrificed. If this wartime policy goes on in Bush's second term, one can only imagine what changes are likely to take place in American's lives.
Yes, in some cases the wartime policy is significant to the country, but it will definitely turn out to be a disaster if the world learns that the advantages of "war-time despotism" were taken by ammunition manufacturers or political factions.
As Chinese college students, what we should be concerned with is that day when China steps to democracy--will the American drawbacks such as voting rates be inevitable? And how do we establish China's own democratic political system, in which all people equally benefit? We are obligated to find out the answers.
Established by the Founding Fathers, the American democracy today is facing grave problems and criticisms. It's not beyond mortal eyes to see that the recent presidential election was, to some extent, ruled by companies rather than communities.
People are questioning whether this Bush Administration is still the government promised by Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg--a government of the people, by the people and for the people. Although it is still Thomas Jefferson's statue standing in Washington D.C., not Stalin's or Hitler's. However, tyranny comes always in silence.
Let's take a brief look at the 2004 presidential election: in history, when the two candidates run at almost the same pace in the polls, the most decisive votes turn out to be from the so-called "Swing States." Actually this is exactly what happened between Kerry and Bush this year. But one thing was different--Bush and his advisers didn't build their strategy around winning the "swings," on the contrary, Bush turned to the rightists, who enthusiastically support him and his plans for America.
As we all know, Bush's legacy will depend on whether he can stabilize Iraq and get the troops home. Americans, including the rightists, know that these tasks won't be easy to accomplish. So, Bush's strategy was, accordingly, to agitate the radical Christian rightists using their patriotism, convincing them that America is "bound to lead the world" and that all whom die in Iraq will not die in vain, that they die for a grand reason: National Security.
Kerry had to admit, although not in public, that Bush was using the right strategy because once the radical conservatives are grasped tightly, the "swings" will be much easier to deal with. The main reason for this situation, perhaps even the principal drawback to American Democracy, is the voting rate. Bush didn't care about the swings in the first place because he had anticipated and was prepared for a voting turnout that might not be as good as many experts predicted.
We'd need a PhD in math to totally clarify this point but, according to just the basic numbers, out of the whole population, about 58,500,000 people voted for Bush and about 55,000,000 people voted for Kerry. This means that the other half of Americans were just sitting in their living rooms watching reruns of the debates on television.
It's the sociologists' duty to find out why these people are not interested in politics, why they don't care about who's going to move into the White House. But what we care about is that following this trend, can Mr. Jefferson's democracy--which I believe is the most perfect one in the world--long endure?
Americans are not enjoying the political freedom that they used to because Bush claimed that, to ensure national security, individual freedoms must sometimes be diminished or even sacrificed. If this wartime policy goes on in Bush's second term, one can only imagine what changes are likely to take place in American's lives.
Yes, in some cases the wartime policy is significant to the country, but it will definitely turn out to be a disaster if the world learns that the advantages of "war-time despotism" were taken by ammunition manufacturers or political factions.
As Chinese college students, what we should be concerned with is that day when China steps to democracy--will the American drawbacks such as voting rates be inevitable? And how do we establish China's own democratic political system, in which all people equally benefit? We are obligated to find out the answers.
1 Comments:
At 11:18 PM , Anonymous said...
China will probably never "step" into Democracy.
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