On Inauguration Day, George Bush has the opportunity to tell the American public what he thinks it means to have been elected president. That speech, and the annual State of the Union address that occurs in January, provide an analysis of the condition of the country from the administration's perspective.
Many people--campaign officials, political commentators, activists, and average citizens alike--have also been assembling their thoughts about the impact of the 1988 presidential election on the future. We decided to ask a few of these friends to share with us their own perspectives on who and what won and lost on Tuesday, November 8. We offer their analysis of the condition of the country in our version of a collective State of the Union address.
--The Editors
LOOK AT IT THIS WAY--FOUR MORE YEARS OF JOB security," said a woman who works in a shelter for homeless people. The words were shared at a retreat for peacemakers from all over the country two days after the election. We laughed--but only, perhaps, to keep from crying. None of us was going to be lacking for work any time soon.
Half the U.S. electorate chose not to vote in the 1988 presidential election. Some were simply disgusted by the dirt and trash on the campaign trail; others felt the outcome would make little difference. I am sympathetic to both feelings. Through 11 years of living in Washington, D.C., I have seen the arms race escalate, watched U.S. military interventions around the globe, and witnessed the suffering of my neighbors in our inner-city neighborhood--under both Republican and Democratic administrations.
My cynicism burgeoned as the election process, always the backbone of a system aligned against the poor, became more and more a personality contest--weeding out all contenders but those with huge financial resources to carry them to victory and never approaching thoughtful debate about the issues at stake. When election day rolled around, I was hit with that autumn malady that strikes young children on the first day of school and suspect citizens every four years: I wanted to stay home.
But I made my way to the polls for one reason: the homeless people in my friend's shelter and their sisters and brothers all over the globe who are victims of current U.S. policies. While I was in South Africa last spring, and in Nicaragua at various times throughout the past few years, I frequently heard the same plea: "Please do all that you can to change these murderous policies that are claiming the lives of our children, our spouses, our leaders and friends." Similar sentiments are offered by people in my neighborhood who feel abandoned to poverty, hunger, and the violence of the drug wars that wrack our streets.
Yet again their cries for mercy and justice will go unheeded. My feeling of relief that the campaign was finally over on November 9 was quickly overshadowed by a sense of the tragedy of it all. It didn't have to be this way.
FOR ONE, BRIGHT, SHINING moment last summer, Democratic presidential candidate Jesse Jackson stood before the American people and spoke directly to my neighbors. He addressed "those who are ... in the projects, on the corners." He declared to them, "When my name goes in nomination, your name goes in nomination."
Never before had they been personally spoken to by one of their own from the podium of the Democratic National Convention. A true "rainbow" in the hall that hot July night--composed of black and white, Native American, Asian, and Hispanic; young and old; workers and women; farmers and handicapped persons--burst into joyful applause. They knew, contrary to what Republican candidate George Bush would later try to tell them, that they are not better off after eight years under a Republican administration.
For them, eight years of Ronald Reagan has meant increased unemployment and homelessness, loss of farms and benefits and health care. As I watched the joyful tears in response to Jesse Jackson in that hall, I actually felt a glimmer of pride about being an American--a feeling that had been dormant for many years.
But the moment faded quickly. Dukakis promptly edged Jackson out of the scene. He subsequently ran such a lackluster and embarrassing campaign that the energy that had roused the Democratic Party at its convention seemed to dissipate in the cool air of fall.
After the Republican Convention, the man who wanted "a kinder, gentler America" launched a nasty offensive against his Democratic rival. George Bush got away with his lies and distortions. Too many people read his lips instead of his record.
Dukakis eventually joined the negativity fray. And he spent much of his time trying to dodge and distance himself from most anything sounding vaguely liberal, waiting far too long to attempt to articulate any alternative vision for the country. By then, the momentum and hope of the Democratic Convention were gone.
Michael Dukakis failed early on to capture the heart of his party--those who want new priorities in America, who feel left out of the American Dream. This year that heart was big enough to set the beat of the country. But Dukakis fell short of tapping that populist energy that had erupted with such hope in July, a power that still courses through America and waits to have its day in the sun--not just an evening at the Democratic National Convention.
A Democratic victory wouldn't have sent any of us working for justice and peace to the unemployment lines (though the Bush victory will likely send more of our neighbors there--and to the shelters and streets). But what we might have gained is a small but welcome sense of reprieve from the grueling policies that plague us and so many others around the globe. Until those policies change, there is plenty of work to do.
Joyce Hollyday was associate editor of Sojourners when this article appeared.
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