Tuesday last week we all celebrated. We huddled around TVs in apartments and bars. We raised toasts and drank champagne. We ran out onto the streets, hooted and banged pots and pans and made the irresistible walk to Times Square. We laughed and cried. In our celebrations, however, we may have ignored one unsettling fact: it isn’t over. The culture war that gripped the last several months of the election is not over. Not by a long shot. More worryingly, it probably won’t end any time soon.
While 52.4 percent of voters chose Barack Obama, the rest did not. While Obama won a huge majority of the electoral votes—enough, in political terms, for a “mandate”—many of those states were won by only a few percentage points. Despite Obama’s solid policies, charisma and inspiring message, and despite the despicable campaign that John McCain ran toward the end of the race, nearly half the country still voted against the senator from Illinois. Some of these voters no doubt had understandable concerns about Obama’s proposed policies, or about his readiness to lead. A great many others, however, voted against the first African-American president because, quite simply, they are bigots.
Many Americans hate, or at least distrust, minorities or liberals or intellectuals. We saw them mocked on “The Daily Show” and sympathized with on Fox News. An unfortunately large number of Americans went into the election mistakenly believing that Obama was a Muslim or an Arab, and these too we have seen and heard from. These people have not gone away.
These are the people that rallied around Sarah Palin and turned out in the thousands as she made her transition from conservative hockey mom to right-wing firebrand. These are the people that cared so fervently about Reverend Wright and William Ayers. These are the people who were convinced, beyond all reason, that Obama was an Islamist terrorist plant, sent to destroy America from the inside out, and who shouted “Kill him!” at McCain-Palin rallies. Do we really expect them to change their minds now, just because they have lost?
After many past elections, much of the public that voted for the losing candidate swallowed their bitterness and decided to give the new president a chance. In 2000, my father lectured me on how presumptuous it was to immediately level judgement against Bush. I doubt, however, that many of McCain and Palin’s supporters will give Obama that chance. From the start our new president’s attempts to unify the country and bring us through the economic crisis, the energy crisis and the climate crisis may be stymied by the very forces of bigotry that drove the most radical segments of the American Right to oppose him so desperately.
I do not mean to suggest that those who voted Republican are all racists, or even mostly racists. But the racists do exist, and they are preparing to wage a gruesome war for the soul of the Republican party. On their side are radical pro-lifers, homophobes, Islamophobes and some fundamentalist Christians. Opposing them are economic conservatives and wealthy captains of industry who care little for the social issues that are so incendiary to so much of the Republican base. To put it bluntly and, I admit, partisanly, it is a conflict between those with money and those with hate, and to be honest, I’m not sure who I would rather see win.
For the rest of us, we should remember that while the tide of the culture war may have shifted this election, we remain a deeply divided country. A powerful racial barrier may have been broken, but racism still exists, as does anti-intellectualism and a deep resentment for urban lifestyles by many Americans living in rural areas. If we want real change, we have to come to terms with these facts. We have to be wary and vigilant of hate dressed up as values. We have to show compassion and equanimity towards the hateful until their anger wanes. We have to teach our kids to be better.
Can we in the blue states reconcile with those in the red states? I’m not sure. But our President-elect thinks so. From the start, Barack Obama has argued that “we are not as divided as our politics suggests.” He has reached out to people and places that did not bother to hide their initial distrust toward him. Some people and places came around eventually, but quite a few never did. This campaign, like so much in politics, brought out the very worst in people, and I’m not sure the scars from that will fade any time soon. But Tuesday last week, when we celebrated in our homes and in the streets, I believe we saw the best in people as well. The culture war isn’t over, but it isn’t lost, either. Not by a long shot.
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