The Two Americas

The press needs to do its job this election and hammer the Republicans on their blatant hypocrisy that was displayed so cynically during their agonizingly long convention. For a party that accuses the Democrats on a daily basis of being "out of touch" with the ordinary people and their economic and cultural realities, the Republicans certainly displayed such contempt for the working class of this country that I think they are not fit to serve in any public office until they collectively apologize.

First all, a speaker after speaker uttered blatant lies against Obama. Guliani said (while twisting his already twisted face into an unexplainable grimace) that Obama "looks down" on small towns because they are not cosmopolitan enough. For a man who was a mayor of New York City and who, following his divorce, lived with a gay couple in a posh-part of Manhattan, to play the populist-cultural warrior card is not only transparent but is insulting to the intelligence of the American voter. Is it is possible that there are people out there who actually believe anything that comes out of that man's mouth?

Mitt Romney really topped the evening when he said that indeed change was necessary, but that we needed to change a "liberal Washington" to a conservative Washington. Another insult to the intelligence of the American people who, Mitt assumes, would not realize that it was the Republicans who had been in office for the past 8 years. His speech was also the most blatantly plagiarized version of Obama's change mantra.

But the climax came with Sarah Palin. This "pit-bull with lipstick" (her words) spent the most of her time denigrating the lives of millions of hardship-struck Americans. In particular, she (like Guliani) denigrated Obama's grassroots organizing in the South side Chicago showing blatant disrespect to hundreds of thousands of organizers who wake up every day to go to their low-paying jobs and try to be forces of change in their poverty-stricken communities. Her cynical, blatantly deceitful, and insulting behavior on that stage, should disqualify Sarah Palin from running a local Wal-mart let alone our troubled country.

Watching the sea of whiteness and oldness in that Republican crowd, I was reminded once again that in this election, the two parties do represent two different Americas. Of course, there are more than two Americas, but the demographic and ideological fault-line of this complicated country falls along the party lines. The Republicans have finally taken off their cloak of populism (despite still professing it) and came out for what they are: a party of business and corporate interests who deeply believes that working peoples' struggles are of their own making and that they should pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. This is also the party that has maintained its hold on power since the Civil Rights movement often due to its cynical and chauvinistic manipulation of the race card and still continues to do so (hence the uninterrupted whiteness of the crowd). The Democrats, on the other hand, are indeed a much more inclusive party, a characteristic that makes it less disciplined and less attuned to cut-throat manipulation of reality in order to attain power. They are the party that unites the lunch-box workers, latte-drinking professionals, gay/lesbian/ally activists, civil rights veterans, among other demographics (excuse my boxing in of peoples' identities here, but I do think it helps us see the complex reality in a more comprehensive way).

I have nothing in common with the Republican America. This is an America that looks at the world through its own self-definition and expects it to conform to its own idea of what it should look like. This is an America that believes that blue-collar workers like my parents should be left on their own and should not necessarily be guaranteed decent retirement. This is an America that believes that my gay and lesbian friends should not be allowed to visit each other in hospitals when, God forbid, something happens; or that they should be allowed to adopt children from under-funded and often abusive foster homes. This is an intolerant America that in its religious self-righteousness, puritanism, and ideological fanaticism despises any hint of intellectual curiosity and expects absolute conformity to its views.

The Democratic America is a more playful America. It is an America that is more self-critical, more intellectually curious, and more open to advice from other countries. It is an America that due to its diversity cannot maintain any ideological or religious homogeneity over its followers. As a result, the Democratic America not only encourages, but often insists on questionings what are often seen as the founding tenants of American life: values, family, religion, war on terror, etc. It is an America that is impatient with certainties, knowing that these result in tyranny.

I feel like I came to this country in search of the Democratic America and in the past eight years I have felt like this America has been under a continuous assault by the Republican America.

This is why there is so much at stake for me in this election.