by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
<\/em>San Francisco Chronicle<\/em><\/p>\n A<\/strong><\/span>re things really as ghastly as they appear this election year? President Bush is derided as a liar, brain-dead and a coward, not just by fringe groups but by prominent members of the Democratic establishment. Major intellectuals and artists lament that John Kerry won all three debates by skilled debating \u2014 and yet gained little ground.<\/p>\n Even the wives and children are involved now. Kerry and his running mate John Edwards gratuitously broached the sexuality of Vice President Dick Cheney’s daughter; his wife fired back that Kerry is not “a good man.” And just when we got a brief respite, Teresa Heinz Kerry derided Laura Bush as never having a real job \u2014 before apologizing that, yes, a decade at work in public school counts as real employment.<\/p>\n Third-party ads, fueled by the money of multimillionaires, imply that Kerry was also a coward and traitor and that Bush was AWOL. CBS News anchor Dan Rather is caught promulgating clearly forged documents, an ABC memo warns against the chimera of objectivity, and Sinclair Broadcast Group agrees to air only portions of a clearly partisan film after Democrats howled. There is no need to mention the conspiracy theories of “Fahrenheit 911,” Teresa Heinz Kerry’s “scumbag” and “shove it,” or Dick Cheney’s use of the F-word.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the back-and-forth acrimony prompts thousands of lawyers to contest an election in advance, hoping to win through the courts should they fail in the popular vote or Electoral College. Unfounded rumors circulate about a renewed draft, the end of Social Security and even of big-shot conservative politicians crowding ahead of the more needy for flu shots.<\/p>\n Is our republic paralyzed with hate, about to experience a dreaded next stage of violence in the streets, akin to the last dark days of the Roman Republic when gangs stormed the forum? Not really.<\/p>\n There is a long history of similar American political invective. The elections of 1864 saw far worse slurs. Statesmen like Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan were routinely decried as savages, baboons and senile. For all the current name-calling, no one has accused either candidate of fathering illegitimate children, turning the country over to the Pope, or being intoxicated while on the job \u2014 standard election year slander of the past. There are no riots in the streets, as was common in 1968.<\/p>\n Y<\/strong><\/span>et the true nature of our loud divisiveness is rarely remarked upon. In the last three decades, there has been a steady evolution from liberal to moderately conservative politics among a majority of the voters, whether gauged by the recent spate of Republican presidents or Bill Clinton’s calculated shift to the center. Now the House, Senate, presidency and the majority of state governorships and legislatures are in Republican hands. A Bush win will ensure a conservative Supreme Court for a generation.<\/p>\n In contrast, the universities, the arts, the major influential media and Hollywood are predominately liberal \u2014 and furious. They bring an enormous amount of capital, talent, education and cultural influence into the political fray \u2014 but continue to lose real political power. The talented elite plays the same role to the rest of America as the Europeans do to the United States \u2014 venting and seething because the supposedly less sophisticated, but far more powerful, average Joes don’t embrace their visions of utopia.<\/p>\n Elites from college professors and George Soros to Bruce Springsteen and Garrison Keillor believe that their underappreciated political insight is a natural byproduct of their own proven artistic genius, education, talent or capital. How then can a tongue-tied George W. Bush and his cronies so easily fool Americans, when novelists, actors, singers, comedians and venture capitalists have spent so much time and money warning them of their danger?<\/p>\n For all Sean Penn’s rants, Rather’s sermons, Michael Moore’s mythodramas and Jon Stewart’s postmodern snickers, America, even in times of a controversial war and rocky economy, is still not impressed. National Public Radio, “Nightline” and the New York Times are working overtime to assert their views in this philosophical debate; Jimmy Carter and Al Gore \u2014 not George H. W. Bush and Bob Dole \u2014 are fuming. Most Americans snore or flip the channel.<\/p>\n It is apparently a terrible thing to be sensitive, glib, smart, educated or chic \u2014 and not be listened to, as we have seen from this noisy and often hysterical campaign among elites. That is the real divide in this country, and it is only going to get worse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson San Francisco Chronicle Are things really as ghastly as they appear this election year? President Bush is derided as a liar, brain-dead and a coward, not just by fringe groups but by prominent members of the Democratic establishment. Major intellectuals and artists lament that John Kerry won all three debates by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[797],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1by","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4554,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/allow-george-w-bush-to-finish-the-job\/","url_meta":{"origin":4560,"position":0},"title":"Allow George W. Bush to Finish the Job","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 2, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"In war, the last campaigns are the bloodiest. by Victor Davis Hanson Wall Street Journal A shorter version of this essay appeared in the\u00a0Wall Street Journal. In singular moments in our history, the security of the United States hinged on a single presidential election. Imagine George McClellan recognizing an undefeated\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "November 2004"","block_context":{"text":"November 2004","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2004\/november-2004\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5320,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/four-months-in-vietnam\/","url_meta":{"origin":4560,"position":1},"title":"Four Months in Vietnam","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 27, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Or how to misdirect public attention. by Bruce S. Thornton Private Papers Everyone knows magicians use misdirection to make their illusions work. While one hand distracts us the other is pulling the egg or coin from its hiding place. Politics is no different, as the Kerry campaign and its shills\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4577,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-friday-night-fight\/","url_meta":{"origin":4560,"position":2},"title":"The Friday Night Fight","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 9, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"\"I Have A Plan\"--on and on and on... by Victor Davis Hanson Private\u00a0Papers John Kerry proved tonight that he is a steady, glib, and adept debater who offers a fare of wonkish, comprehensive answers\u00a0ad nauseam\u00a0that can awe an off-guard opponent buried beneath facts, Clinton-like instant recall, and classical Ciceronian rhetorical\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "October 2004"","block_context":{"text":"October 2004","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2004\/october-2004\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4587,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/spread-democracy\/","url_meta":{"origin":4560,"position":3},"title":"Spread Democracy","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 30, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"What to ask John Kerry by Victor Davis Hanson New York Times The\u00a0New York Times\u00a0asked a few leading commentators to pose questions to President Bush and Senator Kerry at the first debate on September 30th, 2004. How might you explain the apparent abrupt change in policy of Libya; the unexpected\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "September 2004"","block_context":{"text":"September 2004","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2004\/september-2004\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4563,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/country-at-a-crossroads\/","url_meta":{"origin":4560,"position":4},"title":"Country at a Crossroads","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 26, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"November 2 will say a lot about the American people, and our future by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Magazine Had Lincoln lost the 1864 vote, a victorious General McClellan would have settled for an American continent divided, with slavery intact. Without Woodrow Wilson's reelection in 1916 \u2014 opposed by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "October 2004"","block_context":{"text":"October 2004","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2004\/october-2004\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1224,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/americans-still-cling-to-ignorance\/","url_meta":{"origin":4560,"position":5},"title":"Americans Still Cling to Ignorance","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 4, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services The bookish, twice-unsuccessful Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson once sighed that if most thinking people supported him, it still wouldn't be enough in America because \"I need a majority.\" For some reason, Democrats have chosen to follow the disastrous model of Stevenson and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "October 2010"","block_context":{"text":"October 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/october-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4560"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4560"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4561,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4560\/revisions\/4561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}