Alex Quinn's Japan Journal

11/4/2004, Election results: Bush 51%, Kerry 48%

Just a few thoughts about the election.  It's not particularly related to my time in Japan, but this is what I have to say today.  Anybody who knows me knows me, knows I'm a solid Democrat.  I hate George W Bush. Naturally, I was sad for America and the world when I read the news of the election online this morning.  In this case, you have to be upset with Americans, more than being upset with Bush or republicans or anything like that.  The fact is that there are a lot of Americans who support Bush and his offensive policies.  In my (only slightly educated) opinion, here are the main reasons people support Bush.

• Bush is effective at accomplishing what he wants to do (even it he wants to do bad things).
• Bush is a strong leader (even if he's leading in the wrong direction).
• Bush is charismatic.  People who have been in the room with him say he draws people in.  That doesn't mean he's a nice person or even intelligent.  It just means he is fun to have at a party.
• A certain percentage of Americans are conservative and just want a conservative president.  They may support small government (low taxes), strict Christian policies (no abortion, no gay marriage, etc.), a large military, and/or looser gun control.  I don't support any of these, but if that's your line of thinking, then you probably like Bush.
• Bush is an effective businessman.  He raised a lot of money early, he builds useful relationships, and he manipulates trends.  None of this means he has a righteous agenda, but it does mean he's likely to do well in politics.  (duh...)
• People are afraid of foreign attacks (e.g. by foreign terrorists) and believe a military minded leader is desirable in this time.  The problem here is that he manipulates people's understanding of the truth, so people can't really accurately assess their danger or the effectiveness of Bush's faulty counter-measures.

Here at my school, most people are aware of the election, but they are not following it very closely.  I haven't taken a survey, but my sense from talking to a few people is that about half the teachers read the bad news this morning.  Most people disapprove of Bush, but as far as I can tell, they don't seem to know enough about it to really have an opinion about it.  I talked about it for 5 minutes in the International Understanding class.  Students there were definitely not interested.  They were glazed over and quickly stopped paying attention.

Just a little bit about my voting.  First, I voted by absentee ballot.  There's a special form for voting from overseas.  King County mailed my ballot to me right here in Aioi.  You get to vote in the precict you last resided in.  I showed the ballot to many teachers around here.  I also made copies for my International Understanding class, passed them out, and gave a little lesson about it.  In the end, I let a Japanese friend fill it out (according to my wishes).  I thought it would be a neat experience to get to vote in the American elections.  Indeed, my friend appreciated the experience very much.  I told her if any of her co-workers are complaining about Bush, she can truthfully say she did something to get rid of the problem.  It's only too bad our efforts were unsuccessful.

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