So now that Obama has won, isn’t it time for Leftists to ask themselves the question: “Maybe Bush wasn’t a fascist after all?” I mean, it’s a pretty darn milk-and-water sort of fascism that hands over power to its ideological opponents.
But really, maybe it just means that Bush was simply a sh*tkicker Texas politician who a lot of us disagreed with about many issues—-but who a lot more Americans agreed with in 2000 and 2004. That doesn’t mean he didn’t make some really bad decisions. Clearly he did. But it does mean he didn’t subvert the democratic process, because if he had, Obama would not even have been nominated, much less won. (I know, I know, there’s still the theoretical possibility that something will “happen” between now and Inauguration Day to make me eat my words. But I’d be willing to bet very large sums of money, right now, that Obama will take the oath of office as scheduled. Any takers? )
If nothing else it’s a welcome reminder to all political aficionados, Left and Right, to beware of rhetorical excess. (Remember the 90s, when all the right-wing talk shows had “proof” that Bill and Hillary Clinton had murdered Vince Foster? Remember the 80s, when the Left knew of a certainty that Reagan was a lunatic who had already decided in favor of preemptive thermonuclear war?)
If we devalue the language of politics by excess, what words will remain with which to describe the for-real monsters, if and when they come along?
