< Back to Archive

10/19/04

A Star Upon Thar

Today as I was driving around my neighborhood and it's glut of Kerry/Edwards signs, ever so often I passed a house with a proudly proclaimed Bush/Cheney sign. In the middle of the Kerry country where I live, I give these brave souls some credit for sticking to their guns. However, immediately upon seeing these signs, I also realized I made a huge judgment call that the inhabitants at that house were at best uninformed, and at worse, informed but greedy. If these people couldn't see that their candidate was a moron, what did that say about them?

What naturally comes from this judgment is how those who proudly plant their Bush/Cheney signs, on passing my house, would shake their heads secure in the knowledge that they are 100% right and I am dead wrong.

This is a particularly weird election year for this. In the past, in almost all other elections I can remember, people with opposing signs were at least tolerable, and on some level, understandable. In this election, it floors me that people against my candidate think I am as stupid as I think they are for backing theirs. There is no middle ground: you are with us or against us in this one.

It just all kind of reminded me of the Sneetches. Do you remember this Dr. Seuss book? It was a short story where some Sneetches were born with stars on their bellies, and looked down at those without stars. I know this story was meant to be more of an allegory for race relations, but I can't help but feel that in this election we are ALL Sneetches, all walking around feeling like we have the one true answer emblazoned on our belly for everyone to see, and those without it are to be shunned. Some of us wear a "W", the others a "W" with a line through it, and we pass each other upon recognition, shaking our heads sadly at the others scarlet letter thinking "Oh, that poor, poor bastard."

So I fully understand the irony of this truly split electorate. Still, I don't give up hoping that if I just had five minutes with them, I could convince them they are wrong.