The time for predictions is usually just before, not after, an election, but some long-term predictions can now comfortably be made regarding the ramifications of last night’s result. Four years from today, George W. Bush will be among the most discussed, debated, loved, hated, and constantly re-examined Presidents in history, while John Kerry will be little more than a footnote. Before his time is done, the President will do much to reshape the political geography of the world, by translating United States foreign policy into a project of fostering democracy and combating religiously-inspired terrorism around the globe.
The picture of the bumbling Texas governor who won the presidency but lost the popular vote in 2000 is hardly detectable in the figure of the politically victorious wartime leader we see today. Since the unthinkable calamity of 9/11, which fundamentally changed the nature of the job Bush thought he was taking, two foreign wars and an ongoing occupation in Iraq, the world has seen the President evolve in ways no one could have expected, to become the most controversial political figure of his generation.
Bush risked everything when he tossed out 50 years of American foreign policy doctrine, and with it the vile logic of containment and avoidance that has allowed so many dictators to brutalize their people. He rightly saw in the destruction of September 11 the evil that results from endlessly ignoring despots, gangsters, and fanatics. He did away with the naïve hope that the Arab world will simply contain its problems. For this realization, the President is to be commended.
But the night was not without its disappointments. Even for pro-Bush/pro-war observers, the sweeping Republican victory in the United States Congress is lamentable. One of President Bush’s worst qualities is his tendency to incur enormous debt; having a House and Senate so firmly in his control will only encourage more of the same.
The American system of government works because of its numerous institutional checks and balances. By electing to place both the executive and the legislature in Republican hands, the American people have, in their wisdom, virtually guaranteed themselves four years of a full-speed-ahead partisan agenda without any safety valves. Moreover, the Senate now includes some of the most reactionary, homophobic members in recent memory, whose election is owed to Conservative backlash against the rising issue of same-sex marriage. This will contribute towards what may be a growing culture war inside the United States.
The unexpectedly strong mandate the President received in yesterday’s election (winning 3.5 million more votes than his opponent, though just squeaking through the Electoral College) must come as a surprise to those who have grown accustomed to watching the steady stream of bad news coming out of Iraq and the rapid-fire criticisms of Sen. Kerry. We may never know precisely why the President won re-election-whether it was because the voters embraced the spread of democracy abroad and a renewed commitment to annihilating the threat of jihadist terror, or if they were drawn to his less laudable social and religious right-wing values.
Those of us who see in Bush’s foreign policy a profoundly liberal tendency will hope that the latter is not the case, but fear it may be. However, if we must weigh the monumental gains being made by the people of Iraq and Afghanistan against the immediate concerns for faster social progress in America, then I stand by my choice. I am content to let history be the judge.
