Posted on 11/01/2004 7:55:35 PM PST by 1066AD
America is on the brink of an election, not another civil war By Niall Ferguson (Filed: 02/11/2004)
Is the United States irreparably divided? To read some commentators on the subject of today's election, you would think Americans are on the brink of a second civil war.
On one side, so the story goes, there is the Red Republican America of the rural heartland. On the other, there's the Blue Democratic America of the urban coasts. So bitter has this year's presidential campaign been, we are warned, that these two Americas are further apart than at any time since the Second World War.
The two Americas are brilliantly caricatured in Team America: World Police, a side-splitting spoof of the old puppet television series Thunderbirds. Republicans are personified by the trigger-happy anti-terrorist squad "Team America", who inadvertently destroy the Eiffel Tower as they attempt to "take down" the foes of freedom.
Democrats fare no better: they're epitomised by the bleeding-heart liberal luvvies of Hollywood's Film Actors Guild (FAG), who are duped into attending a bogus peace conference by the deranged North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il.
Tonight's nightmare scenario – the prelude to civil war between Team America and FAG – goes like this. First, the popular vote is divided 50:50. Then the difference between the candidates in one or more of the key swing states is small enough to be challenged. Neither Bush nor Kerry concedes; instead they unleash teams of attack-dog lawyers. Eventually, the Supreme Court rules one way or the other. But by that time the political atmosphere has grown so poisonous that its ruling is simply not accepted by the losing side.
Now, it's true that a tie is not inconceivable. Since March, when John Kerry became the Democratic Party's candidate, he and President Bush have been neck and neck in the polls. It's also true that some parts of the United States are staunchly Republican and others staunchly Democrat.
Bush can count on the belt of states running down the country's geographical middle from Montana to Texas and most of the South. Kerry doesn't need to worry much about the West and much of the North-East.
Yet the conventional wisdom that America is being rent asunder by this election strikes me as fundamentally wrong. Having spent much of the past few months on the road, giving lectures in states as diverse as Massachusetts, New York, California, Michigan and Minnesota, I am happy to report that civil war is not imminent. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the notorious political polarisation in the United States is something of an illusion. What we are seeing here is a sign of democratic vitality in a land that remains fundamentally whole.
To a "non-resident alien" like me – which means I get the taxation without the representation – the most striking thing about this vast country remains its astonishing homogeneity. Where else in the world could you fly 2,500 miles and find so little difference at the other end? Same Starbucks, same Wal-Mart, same SUVs, same highways, same people.
Yes, people are worked up about this election and yes, there are some real differences between the candidates. But what Americans have in common still greatly outweighs these differences.
For a start, they clearly share a belief in democracy; it's not just the President who gets chosen tomorrow, but a vast number of other officials – hence the signs you see everywhere that read "Joe Schmoe for School Board". Americans also share a real ambivalence about American power overseas: despite appearances, this is not a contest between imperialists and anti-imperialists, since only a tiny minority of Republicans want anything other than a short-term American military presence in Iraq.
And Democrats and Republicans alike don't want to be told anything too scary about their country's finances; both candidates have played down the looming deficits of the Medicare and social security systems. Americans are not all Christian fundamentalists, but most of them are Christians (which can no longer be said of secularised Europe). Americans were not all in favour of the war in Iraq, but they remain a remarkably patriotic people, passionately convinced that their system of government is the best in the world.
Even those red and blue electoral maps are deceptive. You can meet Republicans in Manhattan and Democrats in Texas. And there would not be swing states if there were not near-equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats in up to 15 out of 50 states. Remember, too, that only 11 states have been held consistently by just one of the two parties in all of the last eight presidential elections.
Another key point is the extent to which American political divisions are not straightforward ethnic or religious divisions – the sort that usually lead to bitter conflicts in other countries. It's well known that Evangelical Christians are more likely to back Bush. But Catholics are very evenly divided. And within the Evangelical community, men are much more strongly pro-Bush than women.
Likewise, everyone knows that black Americans are solidly Democrat. Four out of five are expected to vote for Kerry. But Hispanics are much more evenly divided.
Perhaps the most important point about today's supposed polarisation, however, is that no one ever seems to come to blows. Compared with the 1980s in Britain, this isn't polarisation at all. Maybe it's just Americans attaining a normal level of political mobilisation after decades of low turnout.
The best measure of this is the extraordinary health of American political satire. Team America was produced by the inventors of the wonderfully scurrilous cartoon series South Park, which is The Simpsons for grown-ups. The other night on Jon Stewart's hugely popular Daily Show (a spoof news show) there was a Fiasco Preview, in which the deadpan Stewart told viewers: "Florida has been warned by God four times during this hurricane season not to let it happen again." A nation that finds this kind of thing funny is not about to descend into internecine warfare.
So if they are faced on Wednesday with another dead heat, I predict that Americans will unite... in mortification at the prospect of another election decided by lawsuits. Whoever comes out on top, this is not the prelude to a civil war between Team America and the Film Actors Guild. Deep down inside, nearly all Americans are united in wanting ABT – Anything But a Tie.
Niall Ferguson is Professor of History at Harvard University
He's absolutely right about that.
He thinks Democrats would go to a bogus peace conference hosted by Kim Jong Il only if they were duped?
>>America is on the brink of an election, not another civil war
Really?? Darn.
Niall my not have this exactly right.
huh? he's right about that? anything but a tie? id prefer a tie to many things. like a kerry victory for example. why is anything but a tie good?
A civil war is something to be avoided if at all possible, but the Left is making its avoidance increasingly difficult.
Avoiding litigation of the results.. like Hugh Hewitt says, If it Ain't Close, They Can't Cheat.
We farm, you eat.
I never saw a show called the Thunderbirds but I might like to see this movie some day.
Niall needs to venture some places besides those on the left coast and above the Mason-Dixon line.
I couldn't agree more!!
The battle lines are drawn. Lawyers are the Dems' warriors. "Intimidation" and "Disenfranchisement" are their rallying cries. Voter fraud and law suits are their weapons.
We cannot allow them to prevail! Democracy is at stake.
That a respected writer oversees would see the need to point these things out to his readers is what I find jaw dropping. What lies has the left been printing over there?
They would love for America to drop into covil war...it would validate their secret beliefs that America is inferior and has an unstable social system.
I told my wife in regards to the lawsuits that the 'Rats are pushing, and the constant insipid cries of dischenfranchisment, racism and the rampant vote fraud, that the Democrats aren't for Democracy. They are for winning at all costs. She agrees with me.
Due to vote fraud on a massive scale, we are in a Cold Civil War right now. I believe this will degenerate into a Dirty War if Republicans do not get serious about controlling illegal immigrants and preventing them from being used as connon fodder in this war-by-fraud.
Its way worse than that. Civil unrest is breaking out all over. Not a war, but more than an election at least as elections have gone in my lifetime. But tomorrow will tell.
a w landslide is very different than "anything". yes.. a w landslide is better than a tie. but no.. anything is not better than a tie.
It is sad to say, but I agree with you. I cannot accept a secularized, militarily impotent, baby-killing, anti-God, pro-Gay nation. I just can't. I don't want to be Europe, I want the America of the '50s for crying out loud.
Never has such a succinct phrase described the difference. Congratulations. Guess who suffers the most if one of the two ceases operations?
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