How we'll live now

People whom I care about are feeling really bad about the way this election went. They're right to feel this way; it was a disaster. For the next four years, terrorists will benefit from our foreign policy ineptitude, hundreds of billions will be spent in idiotic ways, and crackpot judges will be nominated to high positions. What makes this election especially heartbreaking is that the left got powerfully mobilized, like it had never been in my life, and we still lost. The margins were small but decisive -- 3% in the presidential, 2% in each of 3 senate races we lost. In previous posts I've discussed some of the things we need to do to win future elections, and I'll discuss more in the coming days.

But for now I want to address the issue of how we should personally respond to this disaster. I want to specifically reject all this 'moving to Canada' talk. I come away from this election with a sense of how huge and consequential the battle for the soul of America is. While I might still teach overseas once I get my Ph.D, my desire to spend most of my life in this country is much stronger than it was in October. So much in the world depends on the makeup of the American government, and an America where morality is about helping people, treating others with respect, and preventing human suffering will be able to do enormous good. But an America where morality is contaminated with prejudice, where self-serving professions of religious faith trump genuine concern for the well-being of others, and where people choose a leader based on his posturing rather than his policy will be a huge source of suffering everywhere. There's no way to escape being a citizen of the world, and the best thing you can do for the world is remain a citizen of America.

This election made me fully aware that the battle for the soul of America isn't something one fights at the beginning of November. It's something that I'll have to fight all my life. It falls to us -- Americans whose moral beliefs are based on benevolence rather than prejudice and whose factual beliefs are based on reality rather than fantasy -- to make the battle for the soul of America part of our lives. We don't need the kind of activism that chains itself to trees and makes noise at rallies. We need the kind of activism that carefully searches out the most effective strategy for making a difference and aggressively pursues that strategy. In the short term, we'll write letters to key Senators and donate to 527s that show ads to win support for Democratic filibusters. In the medium term, we'll spend many summer and fall hours volunteering for 2006 Congressional and Senate campaigns. And in the long term, we'll find ways to use our particular talents, resources, and influence in the world to set things right. If I spend a decade teaching ethics classes at the University of Arkansas, it'll be a decade well spent. All I want is for those students to engage in the slightest critical reflection on the supposed immorality of homosexuality -- to watch conservative moral philosophers scramble to construct pathetic arguments against gay rights, and read John Corvino's excellent rebuttal -- and the Enlightenment will have won a small battle against the darkness.

In the meantime, we've been defeated by bad men whose shortsightedness and prejudice threatens to lead our country into ruin. I look at this in a basically Irish way. Defeat won't prevent us from taking pride in having stood by John Kerry. And no defeat is severe enough to keep us out of the field when they next sound the call to arms.