BushBushBush and the expected responses

Over at Siaw they cover the U.S. election

The Coverage
At 8 pm GMT (3 pm in Washington, DC) Dick Cheney and George Bush came out onto the stage (under vast “W” signs that looked to British eyes like adverts for Waterstone’s bookshops), and the whole thing was over at last, leaving us close to being all newsed out again ...

Was that sign saying "Read More Books, Go On, You Know You Want To" or am I reading too much into it. Has anyone else noticed that in the three weeks before the election the red tops in the UK had headlines like "Kerry's Night of Lust". Scandal hits the UK before the National Enquirer but then I realised it was nothing to do with John Kerry but somebody else of that name.

The Grauniad has an overly pessimistic piece but of a one with the "Liberal/Left?mediocratic" worldview

The mistake we all made was in getting our hopes up. Until lunchtime on Tuesday, in accordance with the rules of superstition, lay supporters of John Kerry kept their outlook pessimistic. In bones, waters, winds and related vapours across the land, the election was divined by pro-Democrats to be in the bag for Bush. This is what is known as preparing a soft landing; it is measured in units of unhatched chicks.

Do what? Life goes on. Domestically life would have been different under Kerry but internationally did anyone expect a Kerry presidency to be that different from a Bush presidency?

The SWP proclaim that "70 percent of US voters did not back [Bush]". S'funny I thought Bush got a majority of the votes cast. Put simply, if you do not vote you are not a voter. The only votes that count are those that are cast.

Again, the Grauniad quotes "Harold Pinter Playwright and anti-war campaigner
"It's a black day for the world." Really. Thanks for sharing, Harold.

The Mirror proclaims on its front page "How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?" That's almost racist in its damning sneering "we are so much better than them". As SIAW put it

there will be those who interpret the result as confirmation of their belief (whether explicitly or, more often, covertly held) that most people in general, and, of course, Americans in particular, are stupid, ignorant and passive, the malleable subjects of a corporate–media–political complex that rules the world and is defied only by such brave dissidents as Michael Moore, Harold Pinter, John Pilger ... – you know the rest: if the people fail to live up to the ideals proclaimed on their behalf, and largely out of their earshot, by those who claim to know better than they do, so much the worse for the people, right? On the contrary, so much the worse for the reactionary pseudo-left, who know so very little about what most of their fellow human beings are thinking and feeling, have no respect for the ability of non-“experts” to process the information and images we are all bombarded with, and can’t even face up to the effects of their own deep-seated prejudices.

Life goes on. "It's not the end of the world as we know it".
It's four more years of the mediacracy knowing exactly what to say. Four more years of fortune-cookie oppositionist politics. Four more years of "Gosh. Amercians must be so dumb." Four more years of "How can those people have done it" (it being voted for Bush and not some other heinous thing). Think of it like this in four years time it's not going to be Bush. Hang on, unless Jed stands. Damn. Then we have a hereditary presidency. Politics is more than who is in the big offices of state. It's all about people and how they act and relate to each other. Has this election changed that? Yup. Not one jot.