As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart?s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.?H.L. Mencken

I wake up in the morning whistling a happy tune when it hits me, about half way to the bathroom: the American people, 60 million of them, in their wisdom, have re-elected George W. Bush President of the United States. The day is ruined, at least until about ten o?clock. Then I start living with it, as we all must.

There have been two, perhaps three, major American catastrophes in the first five years of the 21st Century. The first was the destruction of the World Trade Center and of 2,700 American lives on September 11, 2001. The second was the reelection of George W. Bush on November 2, 2004. There may be a third on the way?the disastrous war in Iraq, which has not yet played itself out but which seems headed toward a tragic and ugly denouement.

These events were, of course, closely related. Bush could not have been reelected without 9/11. Using the leverage of the World Trade Center disaster, the president and his neocon entourage have successfully convinced a plurality of the American people that the attack on Iraq was a necessary and fitting response. ?The president got re-elected,? writes Maureen Dowd in The New York Times, ?by dividing the country along fault lines of fear, intolerance, ignorance and religious rule.? Jonathan Freedland of The Guardian of London wrote in a post-election column that what had appeared to be a four-year accident of history [Bush?s ?election? in 2000], instead of being an ?aberration,? has now become, with his re-election, an ?era?. So be it.

The breathtaking cynicism of the entire operation surrounding Bush?s re-election, the odious disregard for truth, and the shocking vulnerability of the populace to such flagrant manipulation have combined to cloud the future of democratic government in this country. For with the reshaping of the Supreme Court that is certain to occur over the next four years, what (or who) is to protect our political system from irreparable damage?

It?s got to be us, folks, and it won?t be easy. For one thing, a critical portion of the millions who voted for Bush are living in a fantasyland of misinformation and (perhaps willful) ignorance. What can be done when 72% of those who cast their votes for Bush?s reelection believe that Iraq was behind the World Trade Center attack and over half also believe that ?weapons of mass destruction? have been discovered in Iraq. It is evident from various polls that millions of voters chose Bush even though they believe that the war in Iraq was and is a horrible mistake and even though they are hurting economically and support the federal programs that Bush and his people have worked so assiduously to destroy.

So what, if anything, can we blue state folks do to turn this thing around? All we have to do, remember is change the mind of a couple of million voters in the right places. So who?s available to have their minds changed?

First among those who seem to be unreachable are the notorious supermoralists, although the ?moral values? explanation for what happened on November 2 seems to me to be highly problematic. Maybe there?s something to it and maybe not. It seems unquestionable that the so-called evangelical churches turned out right-wing voters, more or less obsessed with abortion, guns and gays, in unprecedented numbers, but the question about moral values that was asked of voters after they voted is, if nothing else, ambiguous. Those of us who oppose the Iraq war, who were sickened and depressed by the torture at Abu Ghraib, and who is appalled by the efforts to remove the social and economic safety net, are also driven by moral values. Thus, it is unclear what reality lies behind the moral values catchphrase

The evidence is clear, it seems to me, that this was a faith-based election in more ways than one; that is, that millions of American voters?not a majority but a pivotal number nonetheless-- don?t care what the facts are. They are anti-rationalists for whom evidence is anathema. They reject scientific explanations for natural and social phenomena, such as the age of the earth and the evolution of the human species. They believe because they must, because it is their way of dealing with an often confusing and frightening world. They have the same kind of faith in George Bush that they do that Jesus of Nazareth literally was born of a virgin mother and that he came back to life after having been executed by the Romans. They believe that the president will protect us from evil (and so does Bush, apparently).

This is not to deny that there are profound differences between the moral positions of polarized, mutually distrustful, groups of Americans. Moral stances are by their very nature almost impossible to compromise, however, and it is difficult to see how rationalistic, liberal Americans can heal this breach without sacrificing their base beliefs. This is not to suggest that there are not ?rational? Republicans, persons of moderately conservative temperament, comfortably carrying out a family tradition, who believe that the ?right people? should be in charge. It?s just that they reason from a different set of principles than the people across town. If things get really bad, if the economy should collapse, for example, this group might be changeable.

There are other more or less intractable groups, however, that seem to reside permanently on the right: The Greedniks (or Taxophobes); The Hummerheads, who drive large, threatening automobiles and sleep their fitful sleep in huge minimansions, for whom conspicuous consumption is a way of life and who seem to feel no responsibility to a larger collective at all. There?s the Guns ?R Us Crowd, who put their faith in untrammeled firepower; as well as those who demand simplistic explanations for all complex phenomena. There seems to be nothing that can be done about these folks, either, except to try to keep them in check.

What these groups, most of them, anyway, have in common is a pervasive sense of victimhood. Just what it is the feel the victims of has never been quite clear. It is very difficult to ease the sense of victimhood of people who are not really victims. It is difficult to salve the fear of people who feel vulnerable to contingencies they don?t understand and, indeed, don?t know how to understand and who are persistently and systematically misled by those in whom they have placed their faith.

Perhaps our best hope is that George W. and his minions will go too far, when the extreme cognitive dissonance required denying reality, and the blindness of ideological fervor, pushing the Bushies over the edge. (One of my good friends is convinced that Bush will crack under the strain and fall sick from acute internal conflict.)

The evidence is becoming clear that Bush did not win anything like a mandate. A New York Times/CBS News poll, reported in Thanksgiving week, showed clearly how confused the electorate really is and how fragile Bush?s victory really was. The poll found that ?Americans are at best ambivalent about Mr. Bush?s plans to reshape Social Security, rewrite the tax code, cut taxes and appoint conservative judges to the bench. There is continuing disapproval of Mr. Bush?s handling of the war in Iraq, with a plurality now saying it was a mistake to invade in the first place.? Moreover, nearly two-thirds of the persons polled said that it was more important to reduce deficits than to cut taxes.

Other results suggest just how tenuous Bush?s capacity to bring about massive changes really is. For example, ?by 48 to 40 per cent, respondents said they believed four more years of a Bush presidency would divide the nation more than it would unite it.? In a startling bit of data, 54 per cent of the respondents say they have a favorable view of Democrats, while only 49 per cent think well of Republicans.

Of course, the administration probably has the votes in Congress to push through any proposals it chooses. But if it goes too far, there will be repercussions, probably in the 2006 congressional elections. So the evidence is clear that Bush won, not because of his policies, but because the voters bought the line that the country would be safer with Bush in office from a vague something called ?terrorism? and because a slim majority of the voters simply liked him better than John Kerry. This may be puzzling to some of us, for whom Bush?s phony folksiness makes our skin crawl, but it?s not loony.

As the indispensable Robert Scheer commented in a recent column: ?The GOP has met its old bugaboo, incompetent Big government, and it is them. No doubt Rush Limbaugh and friends will continue to blame us liberals for everything that goes wrong, but that old scapegoating game won?t fly with the American people forever.? Perhaps the good news is that John Kerry and the Democrats will not have to face the mess that the Bushies have created. We can leave that to the perpetrators.