From Seattle writer and consultant Matt Rosenberg...: Bush Wins, The World Reacts

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Bush Wins, The World Reacts

November 03, 2004

C. Raja Mohan in the Indian Express, New Delhi:

Old Europe...could potentially (be) a big loser as Bush seeks to reconfigure the global balance of power. China should be regretting the decision to show its preference for Kerry during the last days of the campaign. A sullen Middle East will remain the theatre of confrontation for the forseeable future.
Japan and India, the two Asian powers aspiring for a global role, could stand to gain as the old international order begins to unravel—but only if Tokyo and New Delhi have the gumption to seize the moment.

Channel News Asia in Singapore reports that Japan's Koizumi is coming out of the box fast, re-stating his support for the role of Bush and The U.S. in battling international terrorism. Australia's Howard, naturally, is cheered, likewise Arroyo in the Phillipines. South Korea's making appropriate noises, as well. However, here's one very special guy who's kinda cheesed:

...in Indonesia, Islamic cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, who is standing trial on terrorism charges, accused the United States of being "the master in this country."
"Bush's victory will bring another disaster for America unless he changes his actions," Bashir told reporters as he arrived for a second day of his trial.

Bashir faces the death penalty if convicted of charges including inciting militants to carry out the 2002 nightclub bombing in Bali which killed 202 people, mostly Westerners.

Yeh.

The Australian's Middle East Correspondent Nicolas Rothwell observes:

Moderate Arab states, many of which have complex feelings about the Bush administration, will evaluate their prospects with care. A second-term American leader has great freedom to push his own blueprints for change, and George W. Bush's dream is for a revolutionary breakthrough to Middle East democracy.
While the President has close ties with the ruling dynasties of the Persian Gulf, popular opinion in all Arab nations is fiercely anti-American in the wake of the Iraq war. This tension is now likely to be prolonged; it is an important incubator for radical Islamic activism. However, there are also many Arab intellectuals and opinion-makers who support Mr Bush. They argue that reform of the kind he advocates in the Arab world is long overdue. This is an important current of influence that will now be emboldened.

Time's European edition offers several tidbits.

First, an egghead at The Sorbonne is worried for us - the wrath of mighty Europe may portend a mighty wind of ill for America.

The President's win "erodes the view that one must distinguish between the disliked Bush Administration and the American society we've always loved," says Andr� Kaspi, director of the Sorbonne's North American History Center.

European disdain for America. Lordy. Pass The Prozac and Oregon Pinot Noir.

Time with more, on what Euros don't get regarding Bush's win:

Never mind that 55 million Americans voted to send Bush back to Texas. Never mind that of those who considered Iraq the country's most important issue, 74% voted for Kerry. The American conservatives — whose policies have helped push global attitudes toward the U.S. to an all-time low — have won again.

Time also makes clear the U.S. and Europe have been pulling apart culturally for a while.

The plates have been slowly shifting for a long time; a U.S. that spends on defense more than twice the outlay of the E.U.'s 25 members put together, that permits the death penalty in most states, where religious fundamentalism is growing and some 35% of households own a gun, has less in common than it used to with a Europe that bans the death penalty and has grown increasingly antiwar and secular.

The grand prize for insight (seriously) goes to columnist George Kerevan of The Scotsman. This is so good I will quote it at length. However, do read the whole thing.

Here in Scotland, where the mainstream view is anti-Bush, the instant reaction will be to dismiss this other America as redneck, racist, bigoted, gun-loving and ignorant. But hold a mirror to thyself: the part of America that doggedly voted Republican on Tuesday is its ethnic Scottish-Ulster heartland. These are the descendants of the lowland yeoman folk who colonised Virginia in the 17th century, then crossed the Appalachian Mountains to open up the frontier in the 18th, joined by the refugees from the Govan slums in the 19th.
They brought with them a Celtic tribalism, a small-farmer self-reliance and a rationalist Presbyterian morality based on the Good Book....Never in a million years were America’s Scots-Irish going to vote for John Kerry, whatever the eastern pollsters thought.

...when the political chips are really down, the American Scots-Irish prefer two things when choosing a leader: moral certainty in taking decisions (which is different from sexual morals) and a populist ability to speak in something approaching the vernacular....

I mention all this not to justify George Bush but to suggest a way for Europe to understand a resurgent American nationalism that conforms pretty much to what the Scots-Irish made it. Contrary to European myth, it is not an especially imperialist nationalism, but when provoked it sees things with a terrible, biblical simplicity.

....To this day, their predilection for owning guns is less to do with the desire to blast away at dumb animals, as pique at the idea that someone should tell them what to do. That’s why it is not a good idea to try to frighten them by crashing airliners into tall buildings: it just makes them mad.

....As a culture based on self-reliance and Mosaic rules of social conduct, Scots-Irish American nationalism cannot comprehend societies based on clientelism and endemic personal corruption.

That’s why it does not like the way the United Nations has developed into a talking shop, and why it gets exasperated by the Middle East. The Scots-Irish have given George Bush a mandate: but it says: "Finish the job quickly, or we will let the world stew in its own juice."

The world has woken up to four more years of George Bush with something of a headache. Personally, I’m glad the incipient trade war that the Democrats were planning against Europe - to make good their promise of protecting jobs in Ohio - has receded into the distance.

I also think that by legitimising George Bush with a serious popular majority, the Scots-Irish have cut the diplomatic feet from under those who dismiss him as a usurper; as well as seeing off tiresome posers, such as the documentary-maker Michael Moore, who trivialise and personalise debate.

The world can now get down to some serious politics, starting at the G8 summit at Gleneagles Hotel in July. Remember that Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schr�der will retire long before Bush. There is a space for a new generation of European politicians to rebuild the transatlantic alliance.

Like it or lump it, a Bush White House is now a fact of life. But if Scotland calms down a minute, we might discover that his America is a far less alien place than we imagine.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at November 3, 2004 11:09 PM

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Comments:

When my Grandmother would say her family was mostly Welsh and "Scotch-Irish" I took that to mean we were Scottish and Irish. I didn't realize until a few years ago what that meant. So, if you'd like, I'll take the credit, or blame, for Bush's victory. Most of it sounds about right to me. Grandma's 92 and still uses words I only associate with the UK, even though she's from Ohio, like waistcoat (pronounced weskit) for a vest.

Posted by: Ken J at November 4, 2004 12:21 PM

Ken, it was so refreshing to read Kerevan's informed take on the ancestral and cultural roots of this group in the U.S. heartland, particularly in light of the broad brush caricatures of Bush's base that are going around following his victory.

And BTW, I'm passing out credit, not blame, for Bush's victory.The guy's got some work to do, for sure, but it was the right decision.

Posted by: Matt R. at November 4, 2004 04:47 PM

"Pass the prozac and the Oregon Pinot Noir"? Whoa! If this is meant to imply a connection between loving Oregon Pinot Noir and effete liberalism, I object. Like Mt. Ranier, Puget Sound, and Skagit Valley tulips, the Pinot Noirs of the Willamette Valley are part of the glories of the Northwest. It's one of the reasons some of us continue to live here despite the politics.

Posted by: Tom Rekdal at November 4, 2004 05:44 PM

Tom, I'm afraid - that somewhat in the manner of that little sign they post at the local Puget Consumers Cooperative (PCC) organic, whole earth grocery stores when they dare to close a check-out lane - you know, the personally-PC sign saying, "Please Allow Us To Help You At Another Lane" (or something like wimp-ish like that), I have "allowed" myself to be misunderstood.

Let me be fruitfully clear. As a blood-thirsty. amoral Seattle conservative warmonger (well, no, not quite actually) I love a good Oregon Pinot Noir, of which there are many.

(Sometime we should talk about wine tours of Oregon, going beyond the usual North Willamette Valley region, I've had some nice, cheap, drive-to-it excursions from Seattle. Perhaps you too).

Suffice it to say, for now, Hats Off to a number of less-heralded varietals, aside from the usual Chardonnay, Cabernet and Merlot.

Some people were ABB (Anyone But Bush). I think they were actually ADD, but that's another story.

Myself, I have always been ABC (Anything But Chardonnay, or Cabernet). OK that's a tiny overstatement...

I'd hasten to add, for the sake of Cold War afficionados, I am also ABM (anything but Merlot).

There's so much more out there, grape-wise.

To address your beef, as it were - In facetiously prescribing Prozac and Oregon Pinot Noir to soothe the domestic hurt (hah!)of French/Euro opprobrium over re-electing Bush, I was trying to reference:

a) something broadly understood to be an overhyped, and in fact highly problematic mood pill of the type I would never in a million years take myself (Prozac);

and,

b) a type of wine that I would myself enjoy, and have indeed enjoyed, but yet which is competitive with the French Burgundy region, while retaining an essential "American-ness."

In other words, I will not stoop to re-labelling French Fries as "Freedom Fries," as that's just plain jingo-istic and silly.

But, without wasting too much breath about it (unlike what I'm doing here), I think we can all certainly opt for fine American wines (i.e. Oregon Pinot Noir) over French competitors.

Considering.

Everything.

And no, I'm not about to rant about the "Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys" of France. Homer Simpson covered that ground quite well enough.

Posted by: Matt R. at November 4, 2004 08:32 PM

Foolishness is believing one can separate or compartmentalize morality from/in politics. Bush stood for the truth in the face of left-wing/biased media attacks built upon hyprocrisy. As you saw in our election, the majority of Americans know to make the right choice when given the truth. Hyprocrisy can no longer hide. Media and left-wing agenda weapons of deception and accusation have been rendered obsolete. God Bless America!

Posted by: J. Kourt at November 8, 2004 03:07 PM

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