Why did Bush win?

That’s the question that everyone who hates Bush and the war has been asking themselves in the wake of the election. For the first time in his life, George W. Bush won a national election fair and square, getting 59 million votes against Kerry’s 55 million. And the Republicans picked up 3 Senate seats and 5 seats in the House of Representatives.

What happened? How could a President whose approval rating was 49% in most polls manage to win the popular vote after bankrupting the government, lying to the country to get an unwinnable war, and handing out tax breaks to all of his rich pals along the way?

One view is that the country has moved to the right, and that a majority of working-class Americans in the “red states” or “middle America” are too conservative, apathetic, stupid, or some combination of the three to see that Bush has been one of the most terrible presidents in history. This view doesn’t square with the facts.

Fact #1: only 55 percent of those eligible actually voted, which means only a minority of the country supported Bush. Bush got slightly more than half of the half of the country that came out to the polls. Hardly a mandate.

Fact #2: Bush voters tended to have more years of schooling, indicating that Kerry’s support tended to be working-class, while Bush’s tended to be from the middle and upper classes. The income breakdown of the makes the class nature of the vote even more obvious: 36 percent of people making under $15,000 voted for Bush, 55 percent of those making $75,000-$100,000 voted for him, and 63 percent of those making over $200,000 voted for him. So much for the ignorant, right-wing workers for Bush theory.

Fact#3: Bush got 44 percent of the Latino vote and 23 percent of the gay/lesbian vote, according to CNN exit polls. Bush even got the votes of 38 percent of union members and 25 percent of voters who said “abortion should always be legal”. What these numbers indicate is that John Kerry failed to mobilize the Democratic Party’s base: women’s organizations, left-wingers, progressives, labor unions, and minorities. And he failed miserably.

The Democratic Party’s leaders figure that it can take the votes of blacks, women, gays, progressives, and unions for granted because who else are they going to vote for? The Republicans? So instead of working hard to win the votes of their base by promising universal health care, substantially raising the minimum wage, ending the Iraq war, expanding affirmative action programs and women’s access to abortion, and fighting for gay marriage, Kerry’s campaign wrapped itself in the flag, talked about “killing terrorists where ever they are,” opposed gay marriage, criticized Bush for being “soft” on North Korea and Iran, and barely spoke of its extremely watered down support for affirmative action and abortion rights. In short, the Democratic Party took its base for granted and tried to appeal to Bush’s base of evangelical Christians.

Given a choice between the right-wing original and the right-wing copy, voters chose the original (Bush) instead of the copy (Kerry). Aping the Republicans is not a viable strategy for the Democratic Party if it wants to win elections for the simple reason that right-wingers already have a party: the GOP.

But Kerry’s terrible campaign was only part of the equation. Even more crucial to understanding what happened at the polls on November 2nd is the complete capitulation of the anti-war movement to the idea that we have to get behind the so-called “lesser evil” in the name of beating Bush at all costs.

There was not a single national anti-war demo for over a year prior to the election, despite the April uprising of Fallujah and al-Sadr and despite the Abu Ghraib torture scandal which could have cost Rumsfeld his job. Instead of organizing anti-war marches, the main anti-war organization in this country, United for Peace and Justice, sent busloads of activists to swing-states like Pennsylvania to campaign for Kerry despite the fact that he said that war spending should be increased “by whatever number of billions it takes to win.”

The anti-war movement made electing John Kerry its most important priority instead of making bringing the troops home now its most important priority, and the result of going for the lesser evil was that we got the greater evil. Why? Because the national debate on Iraq was not dominated by two sides – pro-war and anti-war – but by the pro-war side alone. The only thing up for debate was how many troops should have been sent in the first place, and how many do we need to send now, rather than why the hell are we there in the first place! Because there was only one side in the national debate, the number of people who said that the U.S. made a mistake by going to war with Iraq declined from 54 percent in June/July to 44 percent at the end of October.

Defeating Bush at all costs by getting behind Kerry cost the anti-war movement its precious time, energy, and organizational skills, not to mention its anti-war principles. In practice, getting behind Kerry meant dropping any kind of criticism of him because to criticize him would be to detract from the goal of beating Bush “at all costs.” The price we paid for this line of thinking is what those bought into it wanted most to avoid: four more years.

The first major protest against Bush is going to be Thursday, Jan 20th in Washington, D.C. at Bush’s inauguration. While it will probably be smaller – due to enormous demoralization after the election – it will be an important first step in re-building the anti-war movement and strengthening it at the grassroots level. Everyone who can go should go, bring friends, and after the protest, join a local anti-war group or start one if there aren’t any in your area.

For those in uniform in Iraq or elsewhere, talk to your buddies about the war, and we can get them Traveling Soldier and get them involved in organizing within the military. On Saturday, March 19 thousands of anti-war activists and military family members will be marching against the war in Fayetteville, N.C. right outside Ft. Bragg. If you’re stationed there, or if you want to attend the demo while you’re on your two week leave, email lplummer@nc.rr.com who is the local Military Families Speak Out organizer Lou Plummer and he can get you more details.

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