To McCain’s Supporters,
It has been more than a week since the historic election that made Barack Obama the first African-American President of the United States. While those of us who have supported him (some from the very beginning) are still basking in the enormity of the event, McCain supporters have yet to cease the vitriol of their angry rhetoric. Like sore losers, they’ve invade just about every blog, message board, and newsgroup with their often paranoid rantings, as if their fear-induced mindless prattling will somehow change what is. To those of you still hoping against hope for time to somehow warp itself and declare your candidate the winner, here’s my advice. GET THE FUCK OVER IT!
For the past 8 years you have held free-thinking Americans hostage with your fear-induced patriotism. You have not only supported and cheered the most inept, incompetent administration in American history, you forced us to cheer for it as well. Now that the rest of America has a President-Elect that we can believe in, you somehow expect us to be graciously silent. I’ll grant that, as I believe in being a gracious winner. However, let me remind you of the following.
- It was you who decreed that no one was allowed to criticize President Bush as he led us over the abyss into the Iraq war.
- It was you who deemed anyone who didn’t support the war un-American, even accusing us of being terrorists.
- It was you who openly ostracized anyone who didn’t support your right-wing point of view (Michael Moore, Dixie Chicks, Bill Maher, etc.).
- It was you who forced your fear-induced patriotism down our throats by way of the media (the same media you now blame for your candidate’s downfall) and right-wing talking heads like Limbaugh, O’Riley, Hannity, and their ilk.
- It was you who pronounced in your finite wisdom that anyone who didn’t agree with the administrations policies is un-American and should “leave the country”.
In addition, throughout this campaign you had people like Sarah Palin and Nicole Wallace who would carve this country into “Real-America” and “Fake-America”, “Pro-America” and “Anti-America”. You had people like Joe McCain to call the more Democratic northern part of Virginia “communist county”. You had Michelle Bachman to propose that members of congress be investigated for “Anti-American” views, and the character “Joe the Plumber” practically proclaim for you that “socialist” is the new “nigger.”
For 8 long years you’ve associated intelligence with elitism while celebrating mediocrity and the general dumbing down of the country. Furthermore, you’ve replace logical, rational thought with religious dogma and ideology, and brought this country closer to being a theocracy than it’s been at any point in its history. So you’ll forgive us “elitists” for crowing a bit loudly for your liking. Perhaps, now you know how it feels to have been in the minority, to have your opinions belittled, and your beliefs ridiculed. Fortunately, I do not believe that we’ll be nearly as severe in our vitriol toward you as you have been toward us. In fact, we invite you to join us. We don’t ask that you agree with every policy that Barack Obama proposes (or any of them), but we do ask, even plead, that you let go of your anger, your hatred, and more importantly your fear. If there’s anything to be learned from this election, and the past 8 years, it’s that this country is only as strong as the bond that exists between all of its people. Black, white, gay, straight, liberal, conservative, we all live here, and we all have to live here together. Carving the country up into ideological factions only serves to weaken us. Let’s use this new era as an opportunity to end the cultural civil war, and move forward as one nation, “Indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for All”.
