It is disturbing to know that half the nation awoke November 3rd feeling joyous while the other half awoke to despair. Of course this was inevitable - it was only a question of which half one belonged to and which managed to come out with an edge in the War of the Votes. Given the contest of chest-beating that passed for campaigning in the final weeks, each claiming his intention of hunting down and killing more terrorists more aggressively than his opponent, as if they were gladiators with spears rather than aging rich guys who probably don’t even own camping tents, the term “war” does not seem hyperbolic, and this fills me with foreboding. As we have ample evidence, nations divided by virulent tribalism are not models of harmony and prosperity. It ought to be a matter of grave concern that for over fifty-five million people, November 3rd was a day of mourning. And that’s just counting Americans.

This was not a case of sulking because we did not get our way. It was a gut-wrenching, heart-rending cry of This Is Wrong. Not wrong in the sense of an inaccurate vote count – although our voting system is fraught with problems and clearly needs overhauling, that is the subject for another article. Nor do I mean wrong according to specific religious views. Rather, roughly half of the voting population of the United States of America gave an agonized cry because the Bush administration’s domestic policies violate our belief in the fair treatment of our fellow Americans in every area you can name: the minimum wage, healthcare, labor practices, tax breaks for the wealthy at the expense of the poor and the separation of church and state. We cried because if America is indeed a leader on the world stage, we are setting an example we would never espouse to our children: using bullying and dishonesty to get our way, with motivations of selfishness and greed cloaked in a moral righteousness we have not earned. We cried because great harm is being done in our name.

It seems equally clear that if John Kerry had emerged victorious, half the country would be similarly distressed, believing it to herald the beginning of four years of steady erosion of the America they hold in their hearts: a country that is proud to stand alone and resistant to interdependence with other nations, guided by the principle of “every man for himself” and skeptical of social safety nets; one that has, as its foundation, strict adherence to a well defined version of Christian doctrine and a preemptive, unilateral foreign policy deemed necessary for our safety – a safety that depends upon our continuing supremacy in an increasingly hostile world.

By most accounts, a significant factor in this election was a block of voters who support George Bush because he is an Evangelical Christian who opposes abortion and gay marriage, even though his “meat and potatoes” policies have a detrimental effect on their lives. This criterion for choosing a leader is incomprehensible to me – I do not care whether my President performs kinky rituals with hedgehogs during the full moon if his or her actions on behalf of the country promote the greater good. To vote for a candidate whose policies diminish your quality of life in order to deprive certain people of the opportunity to vow to remain monogamous and receive a nice cake plate and some small appliances is inconceivable to me. Yet people come out in droves to prevent other people from doing things; we are all susceptible to the seduction of group moral indignation. It’s exhilarating.

This seems as good a time as any to point out that beyond the obvious necessities of preventing acts of violence, thievery or destruction of property, it is a bad idea to let the majority legislate what is acceptable moral conduct. At one point in history, the majority of white Americans thought slavery was perfectly reasonable, along with denying women the vote, working children nearly to death in factories and lynching black people for fun. For a time the majority did not make a peep while white men who called themselves good Christians routinely raped their teenage slaves, and when it came to emancipation half the country took up arms to preserve their right to keep doing so.

The other decisive issue in President Bush’s favor, according to the exit polls, was terrorism – his repeated declaration that he would not change course was apparently reassuring to a significant number of voters. What is fascinating about this is that the areas of the country most vulnerable to terrorism voted for Senator Kerry. Residents of New York, California, Washington, D.C., and other urban centers most likely to be targets felt safer with John Kerry’s ability and willingness to build alliances than George Bush’s “my way or the highway” approach. Those who live and work in close quarters with a variety of human beings and have learned to value tolerance and the ability to work with others were overruled; it was considered necessary to save them from themselves, or to save the rest of the country from catching it.

It is a frightening thing when the President of the most powerful nation on earth’s idea of building bridges is to “reach out to those who share our goals.” Every single person warm and safe and well-fed enough to have room for thought should be asking themselves what he or she can do to counteract the increasing entrenchment within our borders and between America and the rest of the world: the red states and the blue states and the so-called culture war, the fight to control resources and territory, and the conflict and destruction caused by people of all religious beliefs who oppress and kill in the name of their God. Otherwise we will awake to a world where we can only see one another through those weird little holes in apartment doors; distorted and not quite human, we will all become someone to fear.