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It’s not ‘only’ four more years. The past four years he’s been restraining himself in preparation for the election. Now that he’s got approval he’s going to DOUBLE his efforts. The next four years is going to be like the last four twice over.

There’s only three ways his policies can affect me:

1. The American Economy. The world economy swings on this. Fortunately, despite being unconcerned about the incredible deficit, hopefully Repubs will keep him in line on this.

2. Nukes/Terror. I frankly don’t feel comfortable with Bush’s finger on the button, and the declarations about using force to take on Iran and North Korea, both of which may have capability. I feel his Middle East policy fosters terrorism, which increases the chances of terrorist attack on London.

3. Environment. Yes, he’s environmentally unfriendly, but the substantive difference between him and Kerry is a drop in the bucket of what humanity as a whole is doing to the planet. There’ll be long term effects down the line, but that was going to happen- Bush will just accelerate it a little bit.

Everything else: Women’s Rights, Gay Marriage, Supreme Court, Failing schools, medicare, arsenic on the water, drilling in alaska, civil rights, all of it, you know what? America asked for it. They’ve officially given the most corrupt, dishonest, incompetent administration in living memory a gold pass, so now they have to lie in the bed they’ve made. They get to live in the redneck backward dystopia the majority wants, so let them have it.

“Just” four more years? You mean I have to be nervous until I’m in my thirties? Jaysus.

He may not have signed up for the Kyoto agreement, but since Russia has ratified it, they were all that was needed for it to become an enforcable treaty. Saying that Bush doesn’t think UN resolutions apply to him, look at the Geneva Convention - he ignored that one repeatidly.

I was shoulder reading someones gutter rag this morning (as you do if you wouldn’t stoop to buying one) a journalist is claiming that Bush will probably invade Iran next. Probably illegally as he did with Iraq but we shouldn’t let that worry us.

From the mess he’s got his economy in at home I think he should be looking to resolve those issues before he starts spending more money he doesn’t have on invasions that are ill informed.

Someone recently said to me that it wasn’t about Kerry being a better president, it was whether he could do any worse than Bush has done. Sadly we’ll never get the chance to find out. I wonder how many months / years it will be before we find out that the voting in Florida was rigged and he infact didn’t win the election again.

All we need is for Bliar to be re-elected over here and we’re in for another four years of hell as well. The problem being that I don’t think the politics of any major country in the world is fucntioning all that well, you just have to try and pick the best of a bad lot and get on with it. I’m not sure we’re in for a complete totalitarian police state in this country yet, but given another four more years of Bliar - who knows?

He think he communes directly with God. That, to me, spells insane in big flashy letters.

It might just be “four more years” but that’s four years in which several supreme court justices will need to be replaced, and because that’s a life appointment, and they have to wait until the old codgers’ pretty much croak, there’s a good chance that those four more years will bring the balance of justices firmly down on the conservative side, from where it’s only a matter of time before people try to start reversing important legislation like Roe vs Wade, never mind all the stuff that’s going on already like banning gay marriage and stuff like that.

It’s really quite scary when you start thinking what kind of impact that’s likely to have, not just in the US, but for the rest of the world.

With regards to the Supreme Judges, it could be upto 5 new ones, which will no doubt be young, right-wing and religious. Watch womens rights go down the pan as well as the liberties enjoyed by many others described as being on the ‘fringes of society’.

As for Bush not being mad..

That depends on what you think madness is. I would describe someone who doesn’t listen to advice from his betters and relies on (in his own words) ‘gut instinct’ with regards to middle eastern policy as about as insane as you can get.

Bush believes God communicates directly to him and his domestic and foreign policy reflects that. He is carrying out Gods will.

Osama Bin Laden thinks the same.

What happened to rebuilding Iraq? Of the $18.8bn dollars set aside for that purpose as well as improving the living standards of the Iraqis only $29million has been spent, on security firms.

Now I hear (unconfirmed report) that there’s a very strong chance that the FBI will start a criminal investigaion into Haliburton.

We’re in for a far more scary 4 years I think.

But I hope I’m wrong.

Pix I share your fears re civil rights, abortion, gay marriage, but hopefully those of us here in the sane world (UK and NZ, I’m thinking specifically) will continue to take the progressive steps we’ve been taking for the last century or so. The US can be an example of ‘how not to do it’.

As for Bush being mad, that’s pretty much irrelevant. He has little or no real actual power to do anything, apart from make a fool of himself when asked a difficult question like ‘what is your name?’, on live tv.

The real problem is that his ‘brain-trust’, and his cabinet, are totally in the pockets of the big businesses, oil companies, etc, and the catholic/baptist/bible-bashing-maniac religious types. Therefore any decision re Iraq, Iran, North Korea, etc. will be decided on ‘how much money can we make out of it’, and any decision on stem-cell research, gay marriage, blah blah, will be decided on ‘is it in the bible’. This is what scares me.

I don’t think I was implying that he was insane.

Just mad which in my head means incompetent so perhaps I should have said that!

As an example, in one of his first meetings in the Oval Office, Bush argued that it wasn’t Switzerland that didn’t have an army it was Sweden, repeatedly. This despite the NSA being in the room and various other high level advisors. The fact of the matter is that he just wouldn’t listen. At one point he said he was just going to withdraw American support for Israel. It wasn’t until it was pointed out that the most likely result of that action would be Sharon being given a free reign and all hell breaking loose.

I do believe Bush is detached from reality, he’s never been successful at anything from school through to business, he has no concept of poverty. He has also gone on record as saying “only those who have accepted Jesus into their lives will make it into the kingdom of heaven” at a stroke condemning any other religion into hell.

Separation of Church & State was one of the founding fathers most important principles yet this election was far and away the most faith driven of battles. Morality was on the stand and not politics and economy. An incumbent should be able to stand on his achievements and be judged on them. The fact that Bush has none says it all for me really.

You say that 51 million voted for Bush and ‘Those people need to live with the consequences’ - Well, that doesn’t make it any easier for the 50 million who didn’t.

As far as I’m aware most presidents save their ‘big campaigns’ until their second term (if they get elected) because at that point there’s no need to worry about re-election. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see the drilling policy in Alaska sped up, more anti-environmnetal measures started, another $10bn of taxpayers money wasted on a futile Star-Wars style project which won’t work (already started, $8bn spent so far), more medicaid cut backs, relaxing of gun control laws and of course a preventative attack on another sovereign country.

Perhaps I’m over exaggerating slightly but the it is, I think, a real possibility. I just hope 4 years is too short a time to achieve any of them.

Although I am not at all a Bush supporter, I did read some interesting and relatively balanced articles after the election.

There is a school of thought here in the US that we could see some positive (less right-wing) change in policy as result of the election. Bush describes himself as a “compassionate conversative” and his election manifesto for the first election was probably “milder” than the policies that have been implemented during his first term. He does however, rely quite significantly on the far right to get elected.

In fact, many pundits are forming the view that this election in fact was won by the effort focused on the extremist vote rather than any of the effort focused on the swing vote - which is very different to the successful strategies that Bill Clinton employed and probably consistent with the policies that each supported. It is also suggested that his father (GB senior), lost his re-election attempt because he ignored his extemity (far right) vote with his relatively moderate line. GWB has clearly learned from those mistakes.

However, now that Bush is re-elected, there is speculation that he may in fact revert toward slightly more tolerant policies as he has no re-election concerns anymore and a solid timeframe to act within. There is a lot of speculation about how he might structure his inner circle - let’s remember than not all of them are his personal choices. Many of them are dictated by party machinery in exchange for supporting his re-election. He will still remain constrained by both Congress and the Senate in passing laws, and it is difficult to say how much they in turn will be influenced by their constituents.

Not sure if these perspectives are even close to the mark, but make for interesting reading - at least to me. I think that people are completely and utterly focused on Bush when in reality there are three branches of Government, 51% of the population and party machinery and lobbyists all in the mix. GWB is just the face (and a very inarticulate one) of one half of America.

My personal view is that the current government should govern as though they have a slight mandate, still pushing the policies that they have been voted in by a majority to implement (that’s democracy…majority dictate what happens to the minority) - but perhaps moderate those policies keeping in mind that HALF of the population do not support them at all.

Adrian, you are of course correct, 4 years in the grand scheme of things ain’t much. And as the Destructor wrote earlier, the planet is way more fucked up thanks to all of us than any one president could hope to achieve.

Tot, interesting points and they also make some sense….hope you’re right.

It will be interesting to see what happens over here in next years election with Mr Bliar who I think is on very shakey ground indeed….

Simon - I think your Bush story must be an urban myth. Despite the fact that BOTH Switzerland and Sweden have armed services, neither country has significant proven oil reserves so I doubt that it would have come up in a foreign policy conversation (-:

Four years may not be a lot in the long run, but it definitely feels like an eternity now, when we’ve spent four years fighting already.
There’s already evidence that machines were rigged in Texas…not that it would’ve made a difference. There’s also plenty of evidence that the Republican party was doing all in its power to keep minority voters from the polls on election day. And of course everyone faced extreme difficulties when attempting to get absentee ballots- especially if they lived in swing or Republican states.

Tot- are you sure he doesn’t practice what he preaches? Somehow I find it hard to believe that he’s suddenly going to be more centrist. I’d really like to, but I can’t see him moving from his current, right-wing position. I’d like to think, as Adrian suggests, that he’s not going to inflict much more damage than he already has. I think there are plenty more ways to screw up the Middle East. I think that the social security problem is going to get even worse. It doesn’t take four years to demolish wildlife refuges for oil. Something is different, because now he believes that he’s governing with a full mandate. It’s entirely possible for a lot to change and happen in the next four years, and it won’t take a nuclear attack. His decision-making process will be the same, but the decisions will be different.

Sorry to sound all whiny and end-of-the-world-ish, but it’s hard to shrug it off when people around you are crying and looking at travel brochures. Does anyone want a new city-state? New York is ripe this time of year, and 57.77% of its population would like to secede.

All I gotta say is I’m glad it’s only 4 more years. It’ll be a long 4 years, but unless we somehow get half the population of the US to overthrow the government, we can only deal with it all, and move on.

At least you don’t have the Terminator too as your governer :-\ We Californians who aren’t Republican gotta deal with 2 Republican idiots!

A lot of innocent people can die in 4 more years because of his policies or lack thereof.
generally it doesn’t see that bed if it doesn’t affect you directly - but for a lot of other people this may be a death sentence

I’m not sure about anything, just offering what I thought was an interesting perspective and possibly some hope for the 49% on the “other side”. What I do know that most things are much more complex and nuanced than the trivial soundbytes that we see in the media and which are commonly thrown around.

I think there were and are anomolies in the election process - but given than both groups had swarms of lawyers in every state plus international observers, I feel pretty comfortable that if any of those processes had seriously failed then we would have heard about it as we did in Florida last time. I think that the results are pretty accurate and that country is divided down the middle but leaning slightly to the right. Unfortunate but I doubt significantly flawed.

The answer is the United States of Canada. The Northeast and the West Coast can simply shift their borders. Chicago can be the new West Berlin in a sea of red.

As a former ex-pat who lived in London for 7 years all I can say is apologize. I was not one of the 59 million Bush supporters nor was I in his camp in 2000. Bush is merely finishing his father’s work of letting the current wealthy retirees (sp?) and the soon to be retired find ways to squirrel away their riches without the government getting their hands on them. He figures the next generation will sort it out when they come to power. On the bright side, the Republicans now control all the branches of government and most of the state governorships so they have nobody to blame for the mess being created. The U.S. and yes even the rest of the world will be able to somehow survive, we always do. Missing my flat in Greenwich, John

Stumbled here through some lengthy blogging links… I just wanted to point out that the US has a population of 280 million (give or take) and Bush won election with 60 million votes (roughly). As an American who didn’t vote for Bush, I’m just tired of hearing that the majority of the people want Bush. And people that aren’t registered or don’t vote vote Democrat. So the majority of Americans didn’t make this decision, at all.

In response to the last post, the majority of people who voted went for Bush. This may, or may not, be representative of all voters (nearly 30% of whom did not vote). It may, or may not, be representative of the entire American population. But the fact is that they have decided on behalf of America, and that is not going to change, however much anyone bellyaches about it.

I completely agree that if you choose not to vote then you should be happy with what you get.

I’m not inclined to argue, since this is your blog and all, but I wanted to correct some misunderstandings. First off,

“It’s a pity the 59 million people who tried to make a difference have to suffer from your apathy too.”

Where’s my apathy? I don’t think we’ve ever met. I pounded the pavement for Kerry. I registered voters. I even drove a van to take people to the polls. I was one of the 56 million who tried to save my country. So don’t talk to me about apathy.

That said, it’s offensive and ignorant to deprive all non-voters of their voices, and to lump them all together as “apathetic.” Some of the people I registered to vote were unable to do so because they would have lost their jobs for missing work. The US doesn’t make Election Day a national holiday, and many in the working class don’t have the luxury of coming in late or leaving early to vote. Furthermore, you have to have an address to vote. That’s 3 million people you are calling “apathetic” because they aren’t able to obtain registration. Nothing can excuse the lack of political participation in the US, and I am continually disappointed in the low voter turn-out. But your sweeping generalizations belie your own ignorance about the way my country works, and the extent (or lack thereof) to which it “encourages” the average citizen to participate.

The driving force behind my original post was my anger with Bush’s repeated proclamations that he now has “a mandate.” 25% does not a mandate make.

‘Man-Date’ - a date……with a MAN!

To Kelly: Just out of interest - what percentage of registered, eligable voters do you think voted for Bush?