Here's a loosely coupled post with some key points I want to refer back to over the next weeks and months as I try and figure out "what next?" First, I'm finding that there's a lot I agree with in Kottke's How George Bush won the election:

I don't think America is that divided. I think most of us are ill-informed in two major ways, "conveniently" split along the lines of the two major political parties available to us. ...

I can't count how many times in the last two days I've heard self-righteous "liberals" call the entire middle of the country "stupid". Kerry voters, we need to get over ourselves...we're not special. We're not informed by some superior intelligence that gives us a unique insight into how the world should work. ...

Half the country is not stupid. We're all stupid.

So...while I am as depressed as anyone to be facing four more years of W, I'm pretty sympathetic to the point above. Hell, this is the picture of my family. I'm the bleeding heart liberal, former Catholic turned Unitarian Universalist, who has a brother who was a Promisekeeper and is now a member of some evangelical Christian church in the boonies of Pennsylvania. As Tom Hanks says in You've Got Mail, we are an American family.

For another "the truth hurts?" slap at blue folks, there's this from Camille Paglia:

Progressives must do some serious soul-searching. Too often they are guilty of arrogance, insularity and sanctimony. They claim to speak for the common man but make few forays beyond their own affluent, upper-middle-class circles. There needs to be less preaching and more direct observation of social reality.

That said, when you tally things up like my co-worker Justin did, and you throw in some conspiracy theories a la Diebold, the question of reaching out to the middle and/or "work against the force of intolerant fear-mongering that has swept this country" (JOHO the blog) isn't just an exercise in bloggerbation.

I think it's got to be both. As my map from Wednesday showed, America is really more shades of purple than red or blue. And Dave Winer makes a relevant point:

I agree Bush and his people are smart, very smart, but I believe there's a difference between the people who voted for Bush, and the people whose interests he serves. Do the people who voted for him understand that?

To the extent that they don't , reaching out can only be helpful. But in the same way we differentiate between civilians and militia, we need tougher tactics for those who would willingly mislead. (Wanna be further depressed? Read FactCheck.org's piece on false ads.)

And in either case, I think we need to revisit how we organize. In particular, one question I have now is just how much decentralization? The MoveOn folks are rightly proud of the turnout, but was there a backlash because people were hearing from MoveOn, from America Coming Together, from the Kerry-Edwards campaign, from their local dems campaign, etc? Did my writing moms in West Virginia help, or did I come off as pretentious as the Limey Assholes did in Ohio? If there had been some loose coupling between these groups, would the resources used have had more impact?

And we have to find room for religion in our politics. In Salon, Edgar Rivera Colón writes:

That African-Americans were able to forge both an abolitionist and civil rights movement with the resources of the King James Bible and the Constitution of the United States should give Democrats some food for thought about the progressive possibilities inherent in the most widely owned and read book in this country.

Getting better at this isn't key, it's fundamental. After all, Richard Nixon was re-elected too.

10:38 AM | linkme | home