Just suppose... that Barack Obama were to receive an overwhelming majority of the popular vote next Tuesday -- as seems entirely possible as of this writing -- and that McCain/Palin were to squeak by with a narrow victory in the Electoral College. What would happen? Should we expect nationwide demonstrations in the streets? Protests? Civil disobedience? A general strike? Riots? Or... nothing? Apathy? Acquiescence?
What make this a truly troubling question is the history of the past few years. You have to wonder -- don't you? -- about the apathy with which the American public has enabled the outrageous excesses of George W. Bush and his administration: a rush to war on what we subsequently learned -- and Bush should have known -- to be the flimsiest of evidence, or the total absence thereof; an unprecedented and unapologetic grab for presidential power; a unilateral suspension of habeas corpus, resulting in the imprisonment of many without recourse to the evidence against them or to legal counsel; the resort to the black hole policy of "rendition" and the medieval practice of torture; spying and eavesdropping on our citizens; "signing statements" that void legislation passed by Congress; the appointment of cronies and incompetents to high office -- not least to the highest legal office in the country; the elevation of politics over policy, most notably in the firing of states' attorneys general who proved reluctant to toe the party line; and the outright rejection of accountability.
All this with scarcely more than an undercurrent of disaffection and ineffectual protest. No action has been taken. Despite the unending list of lies, deceptions and legal lapses, there has been no significant call for impeachment. We have, in effect, tacitly accepted any and all outrages committed in our name. How far will will allow things to go? Should my nightmare scenario be realized, should the Electoral College void the indisputable will of the vast majority of American voters, what then? Things were a little bit murkier in 2000, when Al Gore won a majority of votes but the Electoral College gifted us with George Bush. Do we shrug our collective shoulders, as we did back then? Do we stand by and watch for another four years as the nation and the world continue on a collision course with disaster? Do we agree that the Electoral College has failed us, once again, and that "something must be done" to change a system designed for a different century, a different demography, a different world -- and then do nothing, once again?
I don't know about you, but it's hard for me to believe that my vote counts for anything, in a situation where districts have been gerrymandered by those in power and where certain states assume undue and unearned priority thanks to the prejudicial game of electoral college vote counting. Here in Southern California, in a safe Democratic state and an even safer Democratic district, my vote counts for little compared with that of my counterpart in Florida or Ohio. So much for the vaunted ideal of "one person, one vote".
It's my personal belief that if John McCain wins this election, this "democracy" as we know and preach it will have shown itself to be irremediably broken. Quite apart from the value of votes, the success of democracy depends on the ability of voters to make choices that transcend their individual desires and needs, and to have the critical judgment needed to vote with that discernment. It requires education and the intellectual discrimination that education brings with it. Absent that, we might just as well surrender our destiny to those who have the power to manipulate us into doing their bidding -- at the cost of our freedom and, quite possibly, the lives of our grandchildren.