American Presidential Elections in Context...
I once had the opportunity to teach a class made up exclusively of employees of the Egyptian Museum of Cairo. These were techies, of course, not antiquarians or archaeologists. The group was in their 30s and 40s and a mixed religious bag: Coptic Christians and Muslim. The students had flown into the US just for my two-week class.
The United States was in the midst of a Presidential race: Bush v Gore, and I remember that the election was still a few months off.
At the end of the class, the conversation turned to American politics, and how our circus was seen in Egypt. The answer of the class was very enlightening for me...
"America never changes."
Here we were in the midst of a hard fought and excruciatingly polarized contest, one that ultimately hung on the chads of a few hundred people in Florida, and my foreign students shrugged it off because:
"America never changes."
I'm watching attack ads each night on TV, listening to each candidate slam each other like the future of the Republic was in immediate jeopardy, and saw rock hard polling indicate that America was irrevocably split right down the middle in an orgy of angry partisanship...never to be healed again. But...
"America never changes."
All right, guys...what do you mean that "America never changes"...are you telling me you could see no difference between Carter and Regan, or Bush and Gore.
"Oh, America changes little bits. Maybe little bit to this side with one guy or little bit to the other side with another guy...but really America never changes."
I found this oddly comforting. What we see as wild swings, the world sees as consistency.
Don't get me wrong. I could have lived with a President Kerry or Gore; I didn't say I would vote for them. I would prefer to vote for the pro-gun, pro-choice, fiscal conservative, constitution loving, strong defense, pro-military candidate with balls...but none is running this year (or any year).
The United States was in the midst of a Presidential race: Bush v Gore, and I remember that the election was still a few months off.
At the end of the class, the conversation turned to American politics, and how our circus was seen in Egypt. The answer of the class was very enlightening for me...
"America never changes."
Here we were in the midst of a hard fought and excruciatingly polarized contest, one that ultimately hung on the chads of a few hundred people in Florida, and my foreign students shrugged it off because:
"America never changes."
I'm watching attack ads each night on TV, listening to each candidate slam each other like the future of the Republic was in immediate jeopardy, and saw rock hard polling indicate that America was irrevocably split right down the middle in an orgy of angry partisanship...never to be healed again. But...
"America never changes."
All right, guys...what do you mean that "America never changes"...are you telling me you could see no difference between Carter and Regan, or Bush and Gore.
"Oh, America changes little bits. Maybe little bit to this side with one guy or little bit to the other side with another guy...but really America never changes."
I found this oddly comforting. What we see as wild swings, the world sees as consistency.
Don't get me wrong. I could have lived with a President Kerry or Gore; I didn't say I would vote for them. I would prefer to vote for the pro-gun, pro-choice, fiscal conservative, constitution loving, strong defense, pro-military candidate with balls...but none is running this year (or any year).
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