Okay, maybe two last election posts . . .

My friend Ellen said I should post this.



I decided I'd better, or else she just might take up my whole comments space. Geez louise, ya wanna co-blog or what?

In the 144 years since Lincoln was elected as the first Republican to the White House, Democrats have only held office 60 years while Republicans have held it 84 years. Even this is deceptive because there have been long periods when Democrats have been virtually shut out completely. From 1860 to 1932, a period of 72 years, only two Democrats were elected (Cleveland and Wilson) for a total of 16 years. The anomaly is the period between 1932 and 1968, when Democrats actually were in the White House for 28 years. Since 1968 we have reverted to our earlier pattern—between 1968 and 2004, Democrats have only been in the White House for 12 years (Carter’s one term, Clinton’s two terms.)



The message from this pattern is this was not the “Armageddon” election; it was business as usual. While the Democratic party is strong in many states at the state and local level, it’s always been a hard road to elect a Democrat president. What this reminds me of is that this country is, and has been for a long time, culturally conservative. Nor is the Christian right a new phenomenon. Christian fundamentalism—reading the Bible literally—is an American invention and rightwing Christians have always attempted to impose their views politically. The high point of that activism was actually in the 20s when they managed to get a constitutional amendment passed banning alcohol and when states passed laws outlawing the teaching of evolution (remember the Scopes trial.) So, again, I think it’s a mistake to view the election as some kind of turning point.



What is different is not that the strength of cultural conservatives and Christians but that there is now a cultural counterweight to those groups which is, if we just go by the vote, almost half the country. We are the counterweight and we are not just some embattled minority. Depending on the issue (abortion for example) we are in the majority. The pace of change in the consciousness of the culture has been breathtaking; when I was in college in the early 70s, gays and lesbians couldn’t get a license to practice law in California because homosexuality made them morally unfit per se and until 1974, California had a sodomy law. Now we’re talking about gay marriage.



The right is not made up of superhumans. It’s made up of a lot of frightened people who want to turn back the clock but history is inexorable and the real history of the last few decades on a social and cultural level, at least, is not the right-wing primacy but the increase in diversity and sensitivity to and tolerance for difference that is reflected in, among other things, the incredible gains made by the lesbian and gay rights movement.



Progressive people need to own their power. The more vicious and vocal people on the right may claim that we are not Americans but that’s only true if we agree with them. Let’s not. Langston Hughes said it in a race context that’s relevant beyond race: “You are white—yet a part of me, as I am a part of me. That’s American./Sometimes perhaps you don’t want to be a part of me./Nor do I often want to be a part of you./But we are, that’s true!”

The election was not the end of anything and not the beginning of anything. It’s another day in the struggle to create a different consciousness in a very hidebound culture. What I plan to do is sit down and write a list of 10 things I can personally do to keep the struggle going.



--Michael Nava