The World Grieves Our Bad Choice

Steve Gilliard sums it up. Excerpt here, but I encourage you to read the whole thing.

The Guardian and European Press are mortified by Bush's win. But they miss what happened. Americans didn't ratify Bush's foriegn policy, the war is still unpopular. They voted on values issues, something which is distrubing to Democrats and horrifying to everyone else. Which is to say, they gave vent to their economic frustrations by bashing gay marriage.

That became the symbol of their increasingly frustrating lives. You can't get a raise, you're in debt up to your ass, you never see your kids. So who do you blame? The market, which you had always been told is good? Or the people you pastor says to blame, the homosexual mocking marriage? People take the easy way out until they have to face hard choices. We are not there in Iraq, yet.

Americans are incurably optimistic about economics. They think they're all going to be rich. So they act accordingly. Many think the top one percent of Americans are around $200,000 a year. They strive to be rich, as if that would solve their problems. Frightened people do strange things. Which is ignore a war likely to suck their children in over the abstract of gay marriage. Something which may never touch their lives.