Home > Why Democrats shouldn’t be scared

Why Democrats shouldn’t be scared

by Open-Publishing - Saturday 4 September 2004
26 comments

Edito


By Michael Moore

NEW YORK - If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a hundred times from discouraged Democrats and liberals as the Republican convention here wrapped up this week. Their shoulders hunched, their eyes at a droop, they lower their voice to a whisper hoping that if they don’t say it too loud it may not come true: "I...I...I think Bush is going to win."

Clearly, they’re watching too much TV. Too much of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Zell Miller, Dick Cheney and Rudy Giuliani. Too much of swift boat veterans and Fox News commentators.

Action heroes always look good on TV. On Wednesday night, the GOP even made an action-hero video and showed it at the convention. There was White House political czar Karl Rove and other administration officials dressed up for "war" and going through boot camp on the National Mall in Washington.

I could only sit there in the convention hall and wish this were the real thing: Rove, national security adviser Condi Rice and Co. being sent to Iraq, and our boys and girls being brought home. But then the lights came up, and everyone sitting in the Bush family box was having a grand ol’ hoot and a holler at the video they just saw.

For some reason, all of this has scared the bejabbers out of the Democrats. I can hear the wailing and moaning from Berkeley, Calif., to Cambridge, Mass. The frightening scenes from the convention have sent John Kerry’s supporters looking for the shovels so they can dig their underground bunkers in preparation for another four years of the Dark Force.

I can’t believe all of this whimpering and whining. Kerry has been ahead in many polls all summer long, but the Republicans come to New York for one week off-Broadway and suddenly everyone is dressed in mourning black and sitting shivah?

Exactly what moment was it during the convention that convinced them that the Republicans had now "connected" with the majority of Americans and that it was all over? Arnold praising Richard Nixon? Ooooh, that’s a real crowd-pleaser. Elizabeth Dole decrying the removal of the Ten Commandments from a courthouse wall in Alabama? Yes, that’s a big topic of conversation in the unemployment line in Akron, Ohio. Georgia Sen. Miller, a Democratic turncoat, looking like Freddy Krueger at an all-girls camp? His speech - and the look on what you could see of his strangely lit face - was enough for parents to send small children to their bedrooms.

My friends - and I include all Democrats, independents and recovering Republicans in this salutation - do not be afraid. Yes, the Bush Republicans huff and they puff, but they blow their own house down.

As many polls confirm, a majority of your fellow Americans believe in your agenda. They want stronger environmental laws, are strong supporters of women’s rights, favor gun control and want the war in Iraq to end.

Rejoice. You’re already more than halfway there when you have the public on board. Just imagine if you had to go out and do the work to convince the majority of Americans that women shouldn’t be paid the same as men. All they ask is that you put up a candidate for president who believes in something and fights for those beliefs.

Is that too much to ask?

The Republicans have no idea how much harm they have done to themselves. They used to have a folk-hero mayor of New York named Rudy Giuliani. On 9/11, he went charging right into Ground Zero to see whom he could help save. Everyone loved Rudy because he seemed as though he was there to comfort all Americans, not just members of his own party.

But in his speech to the convention this week, he revised the history of that tragic day for partisan gain:

As chaos ensued, "spontaneously, I grabbed the arm of then-police commissioner Bernard Kerik and said to Bernie, ’Thank God George Bush is our president.’ And I say it again tonight, ’Thank God George Bush is our president.’ "

Please.

There were the sub-par entertainers nobody knew. There was the show of "Black Republicans," "Arab-American Republicans" and other minorities they trot out to show how much they are loved by groups their policies abuse.

And there were the Band-Aids. The worst display of how out of touch the Republicans are was those Purple Heart Band-Aids the delegates wore to mock Kerry over his war wounds, which, for them, did not spill the required amount of blood.

What they didn’t seem to get is that watching at home might have been millions of war veterans feeling that they were being ridiculed by a bunch of rich Republicans who would never send their own offspring to die in Fallujah or Danang.

Kerry supporters and Bush-bashers should not despair. These Republicans have not made a permanent dent in Kerry’s armor. The only person who can do that is John Kerry. And by coming out swinging as he did just minutes after Bush finished his speech Thursday night, Kerry proved he knows that the only way to win this fight is to fight - and fight hard.

He must realize that he faces Al Gore’s fate only if he fails to stand up like the hero he is, only if he sits on the fence and keeps justifying his vote for the Iraq war instead of just saying, "Look, I was for it just like 70% of America until we learned the truth, and now I’m against it, like the majority of Americans are now."

Kerry needs to trust that his victory is only going to happen by inspiring the natural base of the Democratic Party - blacks, working people, women, the poor and young people. Women and people of color make up 62% of this country. That’s a big majority. Give them a reason to come out on Nov. 2.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/columnist/2004-09-02-moore_x.htm

Forum posts

  • Everyone hoping for the defeat of arguably the worst president in US history would love to believe Michael Moore is right. The trouble is the DLC and the Kerry team have proven at the recent DNC, if any further proof were necessary, that they have no intention of catering to their historic base—poor, black, wor king class and progressive people—least of all those among that base that have shown no interest in registering to vote. Which means emphatically repudiating the entire neocon imperial agenda of class war and calling for immediate total withdrawal from Iraq and the repeal of the tax cuts to the rich. Instead, however, they are concerned with showing corporate America that they are more worthy than Bush to carry on with the agenda of the the global empire. Unbelievably they are fighting over the precariously slim 1% to 2% of undecided registerd voters rather than energizing their mass base to register and vote. And, predictably, after their defeat they will blame it all on the votes that Nader "stole".

    • Friend, your message reflects my opinion: false Kerry democrats belong to Bush. They help Bush to win. Although Michael Moore has my symphaties, I cannot follow him to support Kerry.

    • I recall Bush I in his bid for re-election.....this is history repeating itself the Republipukes are out of touch and Bush Jr. will be defeated, not by a small percent as the "polls" would like us to believe, but by a vast land slide. He and his crook cronies have alienated soooooo many people from so many walks of life that he hasn’t got a chance no matter who the so called other party puts up the best thing about Kerry is that he is not Bush.

    • Let’s face it Micheal Moore is correct. I seem to get ill watching anyone on t.v. from this Administration , must be hayfever. What I was told and the actual half hour total of the Republican convention was all about Bush being the terminator of terrorism. Now you have to be kidding me. No one was fooled in Fla. in 2000 when Gore literally had the Presidency wrapped up but Jeb Bush would not let that happen. I new Bush would not speak about the terible state of the economy, a war that we should not have been in. O.K. Saddam was whacked and his own people turned him in however Bin Laddens people won’t and we should of been in Afganistan from the get go. Saddam and Bin Ladden were not even on the same playing field. They didn’t like nor trust eachother. As Michael Moore has said this war in Iraq was planned before Bush got into office! Nothing of importance was said from Bush about education, national health care, anti trust violation between the doctors, insurance company’s, and companies that make and distribute medical supplies-why guess who contributes to Bush-they do, the NR.A. does and thank you Mr. Bush for letting assault weapons back on the street and reducing the police force, this isn’t hunting season in Chicago. Gangs hunt and kill here. It happens every day. People in Chicago are lying and starving in the streets, senior citizens are worried, veterans are not happy either cutting their benefits. How about that enviornment, lets cut down more trees to help Bush’s pals make more money. People are going to Canada to buy drugs and the drug manufacturers are threatening to raise the cost of medication when people are cutting their pills in half to live another day. Mr. Bush wants to scare us into thinking he is the terminator of terrorisim, shame, shame, shame if he expects the American people to believe he did such a great job after 9/11-do you think he did? Ask people from overseas about their view on Bush 98% of them want him out of office. Where oh where are the WMD? Where is Bin Ladden? Not going to pull a cat out tthe bag just before or at election day like you did in Fla. are you Mr. Bush? I have been hearing from Republicans that if Bush doesn’t take care of terrorisim nothing else matters. Now that is a sham. What has he done so far and how much did he know about impending attacks on our Country and
      let’s face it "read my lip, Mission not accomplished" We are proud of our men and women overseas who have fought for this country and have sacraficed their lives for us. Why are we in Iraq with weary soldiers and why did we go to war without enough troops to outright win? Why Mr. Bush are you keeping those men and women over there so long and calling up the National Gaurd for help leaving there wives to pay for bills they cannot pay? Let us make a decision in November that will bring us a true Patiot and Commander in Chief. Enough is enough with all of this Kerry bashing-ENOUGH! I’d like to know how you got Brittan and other allies to buy into the fact that there were WMD in Iraq? Nice smoke screen. Look what you have done to are allies(?) now Mr. Bush. They are targets of terrorisim because they believed in you.You can’t fool all of the people all of the time you are not fooling us about the WMD (yes Saddam had to be caught but why bring in all those soldiers for an invasion of the whole country? We believed in Bush( or some of us did). We certainly did not believe the election went to Bush and not Gore as they might say in Texas"that dog don’t hunt". John Kerry and John Edwards need to rely on contributions and people to bring donations who believe in his cause like Bruce Springstein, Ben Affleck, Barbara Streisand, the Dixie Chicks etc. Why. because Bush has the N.R.A., medicine manufacturers, tobacco to hook our youth into smoking at a younger and younger age, it took two years for my mother to die of cancer and she didn’t smoke. But I imagine others have suffered that pain. Mr. Bush when you have to pray to God to take your own mother because of the tremendous suffering
      how would you feel? Cancer is directly related to cigaretts and tobacco products and you take money from them and the N.R.A.? Now you want to put more guns on the street and cut the police force down? Sell that to the Chicaho, Los Angeles, New York, Philidelphia, and other cities town and villages police departments. I see let’s spend that money in Pakistan and overseas so we can have use their air strips. I’m talking about billions of dollars here. Sometimes things don’t work out and you have to leave. Sen. Kerry in my opinion will make a great Commander in Chief and John Edawrds a great and visible V.P. Don’t be scarred America be relived come November. You see the same things I see and you saw what happened in 2000 and right now.YOU CAN’T FOOL ALL OF THE PEOPLE ALL OF THE TIME!

      Jeffrey J. Berg
      Chicago, Illinois

    • People are so damn uncomprimising it is pathetic. I hear so many people say, "I don’t like Bush but I don’t care for John Kerry." How short sided can you be? So you don’t get to have your
      cake and eat it to you think you should just give up? A vote for John Kerry is not only a vote for John Kerry but it is a vote to get rid of BUSH, CONDI RICE, JOHN ASHCROFT, COLIN POWELL, KARL ROVE, DICK CHENY, DONALD RUMSFIELD, AND THE LIST GOES ON. Kerry WILL have a respectable cabinet, whether you like the guy or not, with people such as Wesley Clark and possibly Howard Dean and even Dennis Kucinich. To simply say, "ahh I don’t care for John Kerry" is just plain ignorant and it really pisses me off how ready people are looking for any excuse to simply give up on the whole process. VOTE 2. AND VOTE FOR JOHN KERRY.

  • I am a democrat, and you are wrong. I will be voting for Bush, he makes me and my family safe. You are the one out of touch, you’ve let your hate of Bush blind you to America. I’m a mother of 3 and I trust Bush not Kerry.

    • If you love your kids you will reconsider.....

    • Would somebody please tell me how Bush keeps them SAFE??? Other than the nuisance of being inconvenienced for scanning at airports and gov’t buildings, what has he done to secure this country???

    • Bush will not maje us safe. What has he actually done that has made us safe? he has cut and denied funding to police officers, fire fighters, and border guards. Look at his spending on the investigation of 9/11, in comparison with other issuess!
      — 
      $3m Amount the White House was willing to grant the 9/11 Commission to investigate the 11 September attacks.

      $50m Amount granted to the commission that looked into the Columbia space shuttle crash.

      $5m Amount a 1996 federal commission was given to study legalised gambling.

      — -
       
      $1m - Estimated value of a painting the Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas, received from Prince Bandar, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States and Bush family friend.
       
      79 - Percentage of the 11 September hijackers who came from Saudi Arabia.
       
      3 - Number of 11 September hijackers whose entry visas came through special US-Saudi "Visa Express" programme.
       
      140 - Number of Saudis, including members of the Bin Laden family, evacuated from United States almost immediately after 11 September.
       
      14 - Number of Immigration and Naturalisation Service (INS) agents assigned to track down 1,200 known illegal immigrants in the United States from countries where al-Qa’ida is active.
       
      $0 - Amount approved by George Bush to hire more INS special agents.
       
      $10m - Amount Bush cut from the INS’s existing terrorism budget.
       
       7 - Number of Arabic linguists fired by the US army between mid-August and mid-October 2002 for being gay.
       
      — 

      please look at his actions, not his words! help us be safer by NOT voting for someone who trusts that everyone will simply believe whatever they are told while he does the opposite!

    • Instead of saying that Bush will keep you safe. Perhaps you should say, Bush has scared
      me enough to vote for him. Much like an abused housewife who doesn’t know what to do with herself. Although she’s getting beat and her life sucks she will be loyal to her man like the bullfrog sitting in a pot waiting to be boiled.

      I would like all potential Bush voters to : a) explain how Bush will keep you safe more than
      a person like John Kerry would in terms not using flip flop or mere words that were provided to you BY the Republican party. Use your own words, use your own ideas.

      b) explain how a man who has worked in the Senate for 20 years, almost as long as I’ve been alive, wouldn’t see all sides of many different issues.

      c) explain to me how twenty years of government experiences doesn’t compare to Bush’s
      being Governor of Texas (a job which he totally botched up and left Texas in
      disarray) and before that all he did was own a crappy baseball team and some other
      bankrupt oil business.

      Kerry has been in the Senate for 20 years. Think about it. Bush?
      Doesn’t even talk to the Senate unless he’s asking for more money to build up
      our defeceit.

      I’m voting for Kerry.

  • "..Blacks, working people, women..." all the usual suckers, blah blah blah, just send in your money and your votes....And then when the Democrats lose, the ones to blame will be the same Blacks, working people, women, and of course the evil Ralph Nader....the best thing about John Kerry’s freefall in the polls is that liberals can now vote for Ralph Nader and not be blamed for another Demo. defeat. The Democrats have spent months looking for a scapegoat for the defeat John Kerry is going to get in November. First it was going to be evil Howard Dean because he was going to withhold his support. And then Howard Dean did more campaining for Kerry than Kerry did. Then it was going to be Ralph Nader. A couple of weeks ago they were hoping the demonstrations in NYC would turn violent so the demonstrators could be blamed. Now it looks like Kerry’s campaign manager is being hung out to dry. The fact simply is the people who run the Democratic party are just like the people who run the Republican Party—rich, white, males. They are delighted with Bush. They support the war, they enjoy the tax policies, they love Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. Kerry should go back to the beach or the ski slope.

  • Simply put, W will win and keep Democrats safe in spite of themselves. That’s why Democrats shouldn’t be scared

  • Give me a break.

    Polls show that married women favor Bush. Almost a third of non-white voters support Bush.

    The DNC simply has failed to keep faith with its minority constituency, and the voters know it. As somebody said, the same sort of rich white males run the DNC as the GOP.

    I would also add that there’s nothing written in stone that the Democrats have always been and always will be the party of the minority voter. After all, they have NOT been the party of the minority for many sections of history.

    It was the Republicans who argued most vociferously for abolition of slavery. And Susan B. Anthony and friends were largely Republican, particularly early in their careers as activists.

    In the 1900’s, the GOP gradually lost touch with its roots. What we may be seeing in the late 1900’s and early 2000’s is a return to that tradition. Or, more likely, we may be seeing the DNC likewise moving away from their traditions.

    It raises a serious question: what will the political landscape look like 50 years from now?

    • The newsmedia would like us to think that Bush is ahead in the polls.....but of course the newsmedia has lost its credibility due to their being owned by the Republicans. More and more people are getting their news form the internet and independent polls show Kerry far ahead of Bush. Bush and his big business government have managed to alienate everyone except for the Nascar Dads, and that is the real fact. Bush is going to lose like his dad did, their campaigns are nearly a mirror image of each other which only reinforces what we already knew dad’s men are still on the job for jr. During Bush I’s bid for reelection, the polls (same Republican news sources) had Bush leading by as much as 14% at this same stage in the race and he lost. Bush II has been even a bigger disaster for our country and he will also lose. Someday maybe even the Nascar Dads will see that a vote for the Republicans is a vote against their own best interests like the rest of us do.

    • will there actually be a fifty years from now?

    • I think the more a person watches TV, the more they will favor Bush.

      The less a person watches TV (and consequently thinks for themselves)
      the less a person would be inclined to vote for Bush.

      Every day I go to school. I see not terrorists or bomb threats or
      run around cowering for my life. I however do see higher tuition costs,
      no jobs around. The town I live in has the worst economy in years.

      The whole point of terrorism is to affect the policy of the country
      they target. They’ve targeted us and they’ve affected our policy
      TEN FOLD. In many ways they’ve already won. The minute you vote
      out of fear or change your way of life because of some invisible threat,
      then you’ve let the terrorists beat you.

      Be smart and consider all the options. Consider our way of life and
      how one decision might lead to another. So is Bush can keep us safe,
      what good is he win this thing is over? Has anyone thought of it even
      BEING over? Or are we all in a state of limbo. It’s time to wake up
      and stop being so scared.

      And stop watching so much TV for Christ’s sake and stop going to
      bed with the TV on it’s unhealthy for the brain. You know who you are.

  • NO! Democrates SHOULD be scared.

    I am a long time independant that has voted both sides now. I learned a long time ago that there will always be the faithful. Those who, no matter what, are going to vote along party lines. It is us the idendepents or undecided that swing the elections.

    I have a gut instinct that John Kerry is counting on every Bush Hater to go to the polls and vote him in. Well, it is highly unlikely that this will happen. I watched both conventions and both parties had there usual story lines however, right or wrong, President Bush gave us his vision and direction for the next four years. I got nothing from John Kerry. What has happened. I want something to think about. PLEASE.

    • You are an "Independant" and I am "Batman" and "Robin" as well. You didn’t mention that your hero "Jr." didn’t have much to say about his vision, or should we say nightmare, of the last four years. So while you are thinking so hard try to think about that!

  • Bush is going to win. The Democrats will be be off with Bush than with Kerry.

  • Michael Moore has tried to explain the Kerry defeat before it happens, but none the less it will happen. Kerry will lose this race because he is a salesman, just like Michael, not a president.

    • For those of you who plan to vote for Bush because he will keep you safe, please take a moment to examine how the Republican party is appealing to your fear to hide their real designs in making the rich richer while doing nothing to make you safer. The Bush administration real goal is not to make us safer, but to build a permanent upper class made up of the wealthy class that are the real backers and beneficiaries of this administration.

      But back to the premise that Bush has made the world safe. Lets look at Afghanistan, the forgotten war. We have not prosecuted the war in Afghanistan, leaving a lawless society where terrorist groups have regained a foothold, and Iraq is the greatest advertising one could ever hope to create for the next generation of terrorists. This is great news for war profiteers, but very bad news for us, because we have made ourselves into a target, when we could have had great sympathy and build an alliance against hate, now we are the target of all the hate of the have nots. Do you know that the policy institutes that inform Republican foreign policy are funded by defense and energy firms whose profits are directly tied to war? Wouldn’t you rather these policies be defined by long term strategy for what is good for our nation that would act on building alliances we need to succeed in a global interconnected world instead of strategies that profit oil and munitions makers? You have that possibility, if you vote for Kerry. Please consider that war has been used for centuries to galvanize a population against unpopular regimes. It happened in Argentina when an unpopular junta started an unwinable war in the Falkland Islands and regained popularity only to lose the war in the end and be thrown out of office. We can all save ourselves a lot of suffering and start the work that is absolutely necessary to build a true world wide coalition against terrorism if we throw Bush out now.

    • If Bush is presidential material than there is no hope for quality in that office. We all know he is an idiot, and that the vice president and daddy’s cronie is running the show. When Jr. made his appearance (which he resisted with every fiber) before the 9/11 Commission, who had to go with him to hold his hand....you know it, Cheney had to wihsper the answers in his ear as Georgie Porgie sat there with a blank stare on his face. When the planes hit the world trade towers what did our yellow president do?? He hid under the bed in Nebraska at an airforce base, just like he did when he was supposed to serve in the Vietnam war....snorting coke, partying, drinking and crashing your car while the others who didn’t have rich parents isn’t my idea of a commander in chief. And someone who wraps himself in religion and tells people God is directing his presidency is a dangerous nut case, what ever happened to seperation of church and state which is one of the most important parts of our constitution?

  • Frankly, I don’t know who will will in November but I hope it’s John Kerry.

    As someone who voted for Bush in 2000, I can tell you that there is no way I will vote for Bush again. As a fiscal conservative, I am appalled that this President has the nerve to speak about Democrats being tax-and-spend liberals when under the Clinton Administration we were left with a budget surplus. The Bush Administration has run up the largest deficit in US history (and largely due to the tax cuts and increased spending, not the war on terror) at the same time pushing tax cuts that we have no business making at a time of war. (Tax cuts which I would benefit the most from but which I don’t want because I don’t want my three children to be paying for a tax cut we really don’t need). As someone who believes that government is best when it stays out of Americans lives as much as possible, I see an Administration which is making policy based on a right-wing religious agenda which does not represent me or most Americans. As the wife of a hunter and NRA member, I see an administration which seems bound and determined to ruin our environment. As someone who also believes that there is too much corporate influence in government, I have been deeply disheartened at this Administration’s embrace of corporate America, represented by the huge number of ex-lobbyists that sit in cabinet, secretary and under secretary positions as well as the legislation it has continued to pass that favors corporations over taxpayers.

    As the aunt of a young man who is fighting in Iraq as we speak and a friend to two others who have served in Iraq, while I initially supported the war based on the information we were told (wmds, link to al-queda (spelling is wrong), nuclear weapons being developed, etc.) and further being told we, the American people, were not going to shoulder the majority of the cost of the war because Iraqi oil would pay for it, I am sickened that Americans were not given a honest choice about why we were going to send almost a 1,000 young men and women to their death, almost 20,000 more injured and spend $5 billion dollars a month to sustain this effort indefinetely. For all of you who will argue now that Bush told us the truth from the beginning about this war, you are simply wrong. Go back and look at the press coverage from the build-up to war.

    And finally, as the daugther of a brave man who fought in both WWII and Korea, and who received medals of his own, how we can stand-by and watch as the bravery & patriotism of a man who fought for this country be questioned by a group fronting for Bush and his administration - the vast majority of his administration that chose not to go to war - is beyond me. The Republican machine smeared, and horribly so, John McCain, a man who I greatly admire, in 2000 and Max Cleland, a man who I don’t really know but would never think to question his bravery or patriotism. Has the Republican party sunk so low that we think this is reasonable discourse? Disagree with Kerry on his policies, on what he did when he came back but to slander his military record - and the record of the military itself which bears out his medals - is shameful.

    And in the end that’s what saddens me the most: that so many Americans - and specifically many of my smart Republicans friends - have allowed ourselves to believe whatever the Bush administration puts out. Whether or not you like Kerry is one thing but the facts about the Bush administration’s policies stand on their own (and even Kerry’s record which isn’t as bad as the Bush team makes it out to be) and I wish people did more than simply accepting what the White House/Republicans/Fox News say as gospel. Go to websites like www.factcheck.org or www.spinsanity.com for a more balanced/non-partisan view of what is being said by both sides.

    • You are not alone in changing your mind and your vote for Mr. Bush.I have heard this over and over again and for all or some of the reasons you have outlined. The best thing about Mr. Kerry is that he is not Mr. Bush As a Christian I can not support Mr. Bush again, his administration and their policies go against my faith and my good feelings for humanity. Many people in my church have also expressed their displeasure with Mr. Bush using the fact that he is a Christian to wage a hate campaign against the Muslims. Jesus would not approve of this, his message was one of love for your enemys and do unto others. If Mr. Bush were not using religion to promote hatred and war I might feel he just didn’t know any better. But clearly this is not the case.