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Posted on 15-11-2004 Bush Has No Mandate For War By Paul Kellogg
Millions are shocked and angry that George Bush has won another term as US
president. He is rightly hated around the world as a dangerous,
reactionary war-monger.
In many quarters the election results are being portrayed as an
overwhelming mandate, from the American people, for his policies.
On the right, there is a predictable, gloating triumphalism. Karl Rove -
Bush's far-right adviser - argued that he was re-elected "on the basis of
an agenda . He is going to feel an obligation, as he did when he was first
elected, to pursue that agenda." Vice-president Dick Cheney talked of the
"mandate" Bush had won. Bush himself, boasted about having "political
capital" to spend.
But there are left-wing commentators who echo these sentiments. Writing on
Znet, Toronto-based left-winger Justin Podur wrote that after this
election, "it is time to admit something. "The greatest divide in the
world today is not between the US elite and its people, or the US elite
and the people of the world. It is between the US people and the rest of
the world. The first time around, George W. Bush was not elected. When the
United States planted cluster bombs all over Afghanistan, disrupted the
aid effort there, killed thousands of people, and occupied the country, it
could be interpreted as the actions of a rogue group who had stolen the
elections and used terrorism as a pretext to wage war. When the United
States invaded Iraq, killing 100,000 at the latest count, it could be
argued that no one had really asked the American people about it and that
the American people had been lied to. When the United States kidnapped
Haiti's president and installed a paramilitary dictatorship, it could be
argued that these were the actions of an unelected group with contempt for
democracy.
"With this election, all of those actions have been retroactively
justified by the majority of the American people. "The first time around
the Bush people acted without a mandate. Today, the only constituency that
could have stopped them has given them a mandate to go beyond what they
have done."
If Podur is right, then the implications are stark. If the American people
have massively backed the pro-war reactionary politics of Bush, then
looking to build a movement based on common struggle and solidarity with
American students and workers is bound to fail.
But Podur from the left and Rove, Cheney and Bush from the right are
completely wrong. A sober look at the election results show that far from
having a mandate - Bush speaks for a minority of the American people, not
an overwhelming majority.
Start with the issue of voter turnout. A long-standing fact of American
politics has been the incredibly low turnout of voters in election after
election. Through the 1970s, turnouts of just over 50 per cent were
typical. In 1996, turnout actually dipped just below 50 per cent. More
than half of American adults didn't bother to vote in that, Clinton's
second election.
It was very clear - with so few people participating in the electoral
process, it was very hard to say that the winner was speaking for the
people. But for days now, we have been bombarded by headlines saying that
this trend was reversed in 2004. Turnout was "staggering" the "highest in
30 years" "huge" according to just some of the media coverage.
This is just simply wrong.
The Washington Based Committee for the Study of the American Electorate is
one of the most reliable sources for American voting statistics. By their
estimate, once absentee and provisional ballots are counted (likely to be
in excess of three million), 119.8 million Americans will have cast their
ballots. (All figures on these pages have been adjusted to estimate the
impact of those, still uncounted, absentee and provisional ballots.) A
major article in the Los Angeles Times, cited this figure, and then
without comment added that "the predicted 59.5 per cent turnout would
exceed every election since 1968".
A few things have to be said.
First, 59.5 per cent is still very low. If this is the best the American
electoral system can do, then it is a very sick system indeed.
Second, this figure makes no sense. The only way a turnout of 119.8
million translates into 59.5 per cent is if the voting age population is
exactly the same in 2004 as it was in 2000.
Which is of course, absurd. There is population growth every year, and
there are millions more Americans of voting age in 2004 than there were in
2000. A recent reliable estimate for the voting age population in the
United States is 217 million.
But if that is the case, then voter turnout was 55.01 per cent - up, but
only marginally from the 52 per cent turnout in 2000. This is not a record
turnout driving a new Bush mandate. This is another American election
where tens of millions have turned their back on both Republicans and
Democrats.
That is a figure that has to be looked at very soberly. Almost 100 million
Americans over the age of 18 did not enter the polling booth. If you
include the more than six million undocumented workers who don't have the
right to vote, the figure rises to well over 100 million.
And then look deeper and ask who comprises this mass of disaffected voters.
Overwhelmingly they are young, poor, black, and Hispanic. The American
electoral system over-represents elderly, white rich voters, and massively
under-represents poor people of colour. It is completely wrong, then, to
say that in the barrios, in the ghettoes, in the working class suburbs and
on the campuses that there is a mandate for George Bush's war plans. His
remains a government of "Stupid White Men".
This should be no surprise. A political system dominated by pro-war
billionaires has little appeal for the young, the poor and the working
class. There is a greater intelligence in the mass of non-voters than in
the liberal left who, like Michael Moore, went on their knees imploring
Nader to pull out so that American workers could put an X beside the
pro-war Kerry.
Look at the figures from another angle. In 2000, when millions agreed that
Bush stole the election, he received the support of 24.9 per cent of
voting age Americans. His support increased this time - but barely - to 28
per cent.
In other words, 72 per cent of Americans either voted for someone other
than Bush, or simply didn't vote. There is no mass shift towards
reactionary politics in America.
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