Ik beken: ik ben nog nooit zelf in de VS geweest. Al deze blogs berusten dan ook volledig op second-hand information. Vandaar een gastblog voor vandaag, van niemand minder dan Johannes Vandensavel. Johannes heeft een groot deel van zijn jeugd in de U.S. doorgebracht, meer zelf, hij groeide op in Arizona, de staat van McCain himself. Johannes geeft hieronder een gedurfde kijk op The States en wijst op één van de onderbelichte gevolgen van een Democratische verkiezingsoverwinning: een nog grotere vorm van party-disagreement. Enjoy!
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands: one Nation under God, indivisible, With Liberty and Justice for all”
People are trying to figure it out. People far smarter than yours truly, are trying to figure out when it became a nation of two tribes, the red tribe and the blue one. When these two tribes evolved out of a United States. Not that the US has been a stranger to internal strife between different sides: jeffersonianism vs federalism, The civil war, Vietnam, and most recently Stephen Colbert or Jon Steward.
Many scholars know why, when, and how earlier tribes started to form. But that’s only because these are history and they are no longer alive in our world, our minds. The red and blue tribes however are alive, very much alive, in the mind, willing or unwilling of every student of these States
(small note of information, specially for you dear reader, if you believe individual states should have more rights you ought to say these United States, if you believe that the federal government should have more control, you ought to say The United States).
It may not be a political preference, but we all pick sides willingly or unwilling. What is so important is that now we have tribes that fail to understand each other. Someone might have all the numbers of the other tribe, know all the names and be fully emerged in its culture, but understanding, is far more than just that knowing.
So what happened?
Well one of the key things that changed the game was that an old American ghost came back out of the closet. The ghost of conversion, proselytization or to put it dramatically (read with infused tone of dark intent) ‘intrusion’. It has visited this great land before, after the civil war for example. When many southerners did not like the going ons after their defeat and tried to uphold the southern way of doing things. The great reconstruction effort which took place to restore the union was lead by carpet baggers as they we’re called. Northerners who took everything from the south including its pride and its ways, they we’re intruders. Or so the southerners believed.
And even though now the tribes still have some geographic correlation, the fear of intruders and intrusion has changed. Now the intrusion is one of ideology. The godless blue tribe is out to make America a secular state, which the red tribe envisions as a land we’re gays marry, and churches are prosecuted, a state where the cold hand of the government pushes away the warm embrace of the community and no one is safe. Also they’re really not keen on giving up their guns.
While the fanatic red tribe is out to make America a religious nation, which the blue tribe sees as a land where the bedroom is property of preachers & co, where the constitution does not mention privacy thus abortion becomes illegal, and where worst of all, intolerance is the rule of thumb. They do not care for poor people, not because of cold heart disease, but because they do not want the government to come into the private lives of people, communities should take care of the people. And if you don’t have a community in red America, well then too bad.
It’s a gross over-exaggeration. On average there are an equal number of unpleasant people in every country and corner of the world. So too it goes for The United States (notice, I said The). But I can assure you, if you meet the Americans that do not belong to the group known around the world as a** holes, and you don’t mention politics, both tribes have a huge proportion of people who have a kindness to strangers rarely seen on the face of this planet.
This piece serves only to remind you. That even though tomorrow Barack Hussein Obama will win this election. And that tomorrow is the night the democrats will have a party (the festive kind, not the membership kind). Over one million people are expected to celebrate his victory in Chicago tomorrow.
It will not be the night that ends this era of tribalism. It might be the beginning of that era. But by any stretch of the imagination we are still far removed from the day where we can all sit around one table.
I would also ask you to think about this, while democrats will win seats in the house and senate, they will win some of those by beating ‘middle of the road’-republicans. Don’t think I mind too much, not this time, not after all the horrible mistakes the republicans have made in the last few decades. But it does leave a gap, when it comes to talking to the other side. So let’s hope the Dems get their 60 in the senate, or it will get really really interesting (for us), and really really serious for The US.
PS: Dear reader, if McCain does win. And I am wrong. May whatever god or non-god have mercy on THESE United States of America, because a large proportion of its people will not. Luckily he won’t. Even though he was once a most respectable Senator from Arizona. A middle of the road republican, at least until a decade or so ago. Let us remember the Senator McCain of that era.
Johannes Vandensavel
