11/03/2004

Tonight, I'm genuinely afraid for the future of the world... BBC is reporting that John Kerry has just conceded, which means that it is now guaranteed- we're in store for another four years of W. How can this actually be happening? Do the American people like record budget deficits, isolationism, and un-winnable wars that cost thousands of innocent lives?

This morning I woke up at 6:00, an hour earlier than usual, grabbed my shortwave radio, and went to try to tune in the latest election results. At the time, it was still too close to call, although things were beginning to look good for Bush. I suppose I still had some hope though, although it wasn't what I wanted to hear. As the day went on, the news got progressively worse– each state was called for one or the other until it was down only to Ohio. Apparently, Kerry has given up now though, so it's over. It's really over. I just wonder if there will be a United States to come back to when I finish serving here in 2006. OK, perhaps that's a little extreme, but I can’t help but think that the America I'll be coming back to, halfway through Bush II, take 2 is not a place I'm going to want to hang around.

I'd joked with my family and friends that if Bush were re-elected, I might just stay out of the country until 2008- at the moment, to be honest, it's not sounding like a bad idea. Yes, America will always be home for me, but under George W. Bush, America has only gotten worse, and I fear will go even further downward now that he has nothing to lose.

I remember when the war in Iraq started in early 2003, how hard it felt to be an American abroad. I was living in Denmark at the time, and just trying to explain that Bush didn't represent every American, that there were people out there who believed he was doing everything wrong. Most of the people I talked to seemed to understand that with the controversy in 2000, it could've been a fluke, that Bush stole the presidency on a technicality. The sense was that the American people weren't actually that stupid, that Bush was simply a historical accident, and that the world would be set right again in 2004. We don't have that option any more. This time though, Bush won convincingly in both the popular vote and Electoral College, and it's no fluke; the people really are that stupid, apparently.

I don't mean to sound overly pessimistic, but I honestly have a hard time seeing how things can get worse; now that we're going downhill, it seems like Bush will find a way. Which countries will we be invading next? Syria, Iran, North Korea? Not to say that any of these places are models of good government, but now, there's nothing to lose. As the cliché goes, I'm hoping for the best, but fearing for the worst...

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