Bat Right, Swing Left?
A Christian Science Monitor story today suggests that some American state initiatives may be a local counter-balance to the obvious right-wing surge on the national level.
In general, I am not in favour of voter initiatives, as I believe they victimize the ignorant, and make powerless the very institutions — the legislatures — that our democracies have set up to, well, legislate.
However, there has been a lot of recent talk in the media of a “divided America”, as if Bush-voters and Kerry-voters stand on opposite sides of a great cultural chasm. I think it’s important to realize that millions of voters do not necessarily vote on ideological lines. There may be a hard right that will fight tooth-and-nail for tax cuts, anti-abortion legislation and the right to bear arms, but I don’t believe for a moment that they are 51% of the voting public.
Many socially moderate Americans voted for Bush, and it would be a great error to assume that just because they think he is a “great leader”, that they are necessarily against all so-called progressive ideas.
Voters in Florida and Nevada chose to raise the minimum wage, and voters in Colorado passed legislation that requires that state utilities seek ways to provide energy from alternative sources. All three states were won by Bush.
If the Democrat party isn’t paying attention to these minor, silver linings, they’re even stupider than they seem. (No mean feat.) The Democrats have clearly lost touch with the common concerns of voters if those voters are willing to pass progressive legislation but can’t trust Democrat politicians to do it for them.
Previously: Democracy in Action
Subsequently: Foxy Lady
Comments
We’ve all seen those American maps with red and blue states which depict “Bush” and “Kerry” states, respectively. Jeff Culver found this graphical representation to be misleading, so he created an alternative view which blends the reds and blues to create shades of purple. I agree that it paints a more accurate picture about how similar the various states actually are to each other. At any rate, I found it interesting, and more or less on the same topic of this posting.
— Patrick | Nov. 4, 2004 — 2 PM