The Homophobes Are Coming!

It appears that all is forgiven, and The Wall Street Journal is taking Peggy Noonan back agian [/joke]. This ran, as I recall, circa Thursday:

Let us get our heads around the size and scope of what happened Tuesday. George W. Bush, 43rd president of the United States, became the first incumbent president to increase his majority in both the Senate and the House and to increase his own vote (by over 3.5 million) since Franklin D. Roosevelt, political genius of the 20th century, in 1936. This is huge.

George W. Bush is the first president to win more than 50% of the popular vote since 1988. (Bill Clinton failed to twice; Mr. Bush failed to last time and fell short of a plurality by half a million.) The president received more than 59 million votes, breaking Ronald Reagan's old record of 54.5 million. Mr. Bush increased his personal percentages in almost every state in the union. He carried the Catholic vote and won 42% of the Hispanic vote and 24% of the Jewish vote (up from 19% in 2000.)

She is just so good. The leitmotif on this essay is the word "savor," which somehow annoyed me, either despite or because I knew it wasn't a synonym for "gloat." But in between the "choruses," the verses are still so damned good: vintage Peggy. Read the whole thing, if you haven't already.

There is a tendancy to try to find one cause for Bush's victory, to place this all on evengelical voters without seeing that Bush could not have won without increasing the percentages of Jews, Black people, and Catholics who voted for him. Or to link this election more strongly to the issue of gay marriage than to that of Kerry's own personal integrity, simply because "moral values" were mentioned in some exit polls. (Not lying in front of Congress could be perceived to be a moral value, no? Or not exacerbating the suffering of American POWs during the Vietnam war . . . ?)

Michele of ASV recommends that the left chill the hell out:

If you don't mind, I'd like to address the throngs of Chicken Littles who seem to be out in full force on the net today. I just want to clear up a few things, as you all seem to be pretty misguided in more than one area today.

I voted for George Bush.
I am not a redneck.
I do not spend my days watching cars race around a track, drinking cheap beer and slapping my woman on the ass.
I am not a bible thumper. In fact, I am an atheist.
I am not a homophobe.
I am educated beyond the fifth grade. In fact, I am college educated.
I am not stupid. Not by any stretch of facts.
I do not bomb abortion clinics.

You will not be thrown in jail for the sole reason of being a liberal.
Your child's public school will not suddenly turn into a center for Christian brainwashing.
Your favorite bookstore will not turn into puritan central.

This is not Nazi Germany in any way.
You will not be forced into concentration camps.
You will not be burned in human-sized ovens because of your religion.
We will not be forced to wear uniforms and march in line every day.
You will not live in fear.
If you think this is a country in which you have to live in fear, I have some friends in Iran who would like to have a little talk with you.

Finally, Micheal J. Totten has been discussing this a lot lately—the myth of the Christian Takeover. In one entry, "An Exodus of Women," he points out that females abandoned the Democratic Party in droves this last election. Lively discussion ensues on his comments board: one commenter points out that the 2004 results simply reflected a liberal-conservative coalition against the left. I think that's about right.

I’m not buying the now-popular theory that says Bush won because he whipped up an evangelical frenzy against gay marriage. John Kerry also opposes gay marriage. Both Bush and Kerry are in favor of civil unions. Kerry bragged that his position on gay marriage is exactly the same as the president’s. (I think they’re both wrong, for whatever that’s worth. I’m to the left of both of them on this question.) Besides, my state of Oregon voted to ban gay marriage and also chose Kerry in a landslide. The gay marriage debate was barely whispered here. It didn't help Bush at all. Lots of people around here saw no contradiction voting against gay marriage and also for Kerry.

And in a follow-up piece, "Zombie Hordes of Theo-Cons," he links to an Andrew Coyne essay and shares his own thoughts:

The Republican Party has a nut-job wing. Pat Robertson is real. James Dobson is real. Michael Savage is real. These guys have fans, and they voted. There’s no denying it. But there’s also no denying that if John Kerry faced Pat Robertson in an election the Republican Party would have to dig itself out of a smouldering crater.

45 percent of the people who voted for Bush are self-described liberals or moderates. (Earth to Democrats: That’s why he beat you.) Only 55 percent of the people who voted for Bush are conservatives. (See Andrew’s piece for the details.) And, as most of us know, there are many different kinds of conservatives. There are neocons and paleocons, Wall Street conservatives and religious conservatives. Not to mention plain old run-of-the-mill conservatives. It’s a fractious group of people who have little in common but, oddly enough, happen to wear the same useless label.

Zeroing in on only one of those factions and blowing it all out proportion will get the Democrats nowhere. It makes as much sense as Ann Coulter accusing every leftie in the land of being pro-terrorist. It’s not only dumb but exceptionally counterproductive.

(My emphasis.)

So enough with the stereotypes, okay? And enough with picking one strand out of the tapestry and suggesting it represents the whole thing.

The Democratic Party has to dig itself out of the "victim mindset" it uses to foster dependency within its various client groups, and do a little soul-searching.