Understanding the election in fewer than 100 words

People voted against the Republicans, because of their displeasure with President Bush over the Iraq mess.

People didn’t bother voting for the Republicans, because the Republicans did not campaign for immigration controls or even advertise their earlier defeat of Bush’s open-borders bill.

Thus the Republicans lost because they sought to spread democracy to the rest of the world, and because they failed to take an articulate stand against letting the rest of the world come to America.

They lost, in short, because of their adherence to, or insufficient dissent from, neoconservatism.

- end of initial entry -

A reader writes:

Regarding your entry “Understanding the election in fewer than 100 words,” aren’t you forgetting the economy? Many people also voted against the Republicans because they see them as a group of free market ideologues (another neoconservative characteristic) exporting the real economy abroad and creating a huge debt that future generations will have to pay.

This is somehow related to your second point, but a valid point by itself, because even with no Irak war and with tougher immigration control if the real economy (as opposed to services and finance) keeps shrinking the USA will cease to be a middle class country.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 09, 2006 08:05 PM | Send