Tuesday, October 26, 2004

The Obligatory Political Post

I am seriously considering writing a post next Monday on why the US won't become a fascist state no matter who wins next Tuesday.

I'm getting tired of hearing how the world is going to end or that we're going to find ourselves back in the dark ages if this candidate or that candidate wins.

Let's see. Our country has survived:

- a civil war
- a Great Depression
- FDR and the New Deal (where the Pres overrode Congress and a lot of his stuff was overruled by the Supreme Court later)
- McCartyism
- Richard Nixon
- Andrew Jackson
- Puppet Pres. Grant
- 2 World Wars
- The Korean War
- Vietnam
- 9/11
- the Sexual Revolution
- the "Great Awakening" of the early 1800s
- Civil Disobedience
- the Cold War
- Women's Sufferage
- the Temperance Act

And yet we never totally derailed our constitution-based federal republic with strong democratic tradition. Not even when Regan was president and he was popular with most of the populace. How can we possibly become a fascist state when the voters are almost evenly split between the two parties?

It can't happen. For a fascist government to occur, one side must be more powerful than the other. We don't have that here.

Whoever wins - wins. I will neither celebrate nor will I bemoan and rail against the fates because of the outcome. George Washington wanted the election of presidents to happen in a civil and mature way. I plan to honor that.

6 comments:

Mexigogue said...

Hey, give us more credit than that. We also survivied the 1980 New Orlean Saints, parachute pants, and the Spice Girls. America takes some rough knocks but we snap back wash after wash! And I agree of course that it's silly that people are proclaiming doom based on which candidate gets elected. People just cannot do without drama.

Cosmic Siren said...

Okay, let's add the Teapot Dome Scandal, Rosanne Barr's singing, Elvis's death, yellow journalism, Herbert Hoover (the name alone), the US gymnastics team dancing the Macarana at the Atlanta Olympics and Billy Beer.

Mexigogue said...

The Spaceshuttle Challenger and JR getting shot.

Cosmic Siren said...

And the space shuttle Columbia and the 70's oil crisis.

Phelps said...

Does Yanni count as something that America has survived?

And I wouldn't say that we have survived women's sufferage YET. I can think of a couple of real honest to goodness threats to America in toto, namely the Seventeenth Amendment and the abuse of Eminent Domain. I think the Electoral College is one of the few bastions of federalism left.

Cosmic Siren said...

Do you see us going towards a fascist state?