Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 30 Nov. - 6 Dec. 2000 Issue No.510

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Bushestan defeats Gorestan

By Ervin Hladnik-Milharcic

The American presidential election offered a choice between two middle-of-the-road, not very exciting politicians. They were both products of two political dynasties, well groomed but without any of the appeal of real life characters. They had to be taken seriously because of the position for which they were competing, not for what they were offering as political craftsmen. Brilliance, ideas or vision were out of the question from the very beginning. The Democrats put on the market a boring vice president who supposedly knew his maths and had the qualifications for the job but was unlikeable, the Republicans an equally boring governor who supposedly wasn't qualified and couldn't spell but was liked by the public.

On Sunday Katherine Harris, Florida's secretary of state, certified George W Bush as winner in Florida and of the state's 25 electoral votes, giving him enough to defeat Al Gore at the Electoral College. Gore refused to accept the verdict, and is contending it.

The race has had its moments of glory. "I will promote oil exploration in Mexico to lessen our dependence on foreign oil," was George W Bush's contribution to the discussion on globalisation. "I stand here as my own man," was Al Gore's confirmation of the Newtonian law that says two objects cannot stand in the same place at the same time. His primary concern was to convince the voters that he was not Bill Clinton, just in case somebody hadn't noticed. It was a meagre and surprising selection for the post of the next leader of the free world. Even more so because it came from a culture that is obsessed with diversification of products and pushes choice to the limits.

This is a country where even in cheap fast-food outlets on interstate highways you are confronted with a confusing choice of six different sweet or sour salad dressings.

In coffeehouses you cannot order just a coffee.

"Vanilla, hazelnut, chocolate, cinnamon flavoured?" is the least you can expect from any self-respecting waitress or waiter. And you cannot get away just with requesting coffee-flavoured coffee.

"Regular, decaf or half and half?"

"Just coffee with coffee."

"Milk or cream?"

"Milk."

"Skimmed, half skimmed, or full cream?"

Down to the desperate motel in Little Rock, Arkansas, where a week before the election a waiter pushed me to desperation by insisting that I choose between strawberry or raspberry flavoured decaffeinated or caffeinated, small, regular or large espresso or cappuccino with a selection of white or brown sugars and three different sugar substitutes. I opted for tea and had to choose from a box of twelve different flavours and the interminable mantra of milk or milk substitute.

Graham Usher, who has been studying these phenomena, calls it the dictatorship of choice. The Americans call themselves a multiple-choice society.

They have multiplied the basics and created a universe where the single doesn't exist. Everything comes in at least five different formats with a myriad of variations. The supermarket where I buy groceries has ten metres of multiple shells of yogurts, fifteen different types of milk and about a hundred brands of cereal. It's in a side street in Brooklyn which has seven grocery shops.

Americans are expert in choosing the answers to their daily needs. They place their orders with scientific precision and complain vigorously if their choice among the infinite universe of possibilities is not matched with what they have ordered. I have yet to meet an American who is undecided in front of a big display of any hamburger place or coffee house chain.

When it comes to politics they go into reverse. The USA has a multiparty system with only two parties that exclude even the theoretical possibility of a third or fourth choice. It's a shelf with only two brands of yogurt, both skimmed. A situation that the Americans associate with Eastern Europe before the fall of the Wall. But they seemed to be happy with it, America is a great democracy and the political system works brilliantly. Or at least it has worked without a glitch for more than a hundred years. Both parties offered platforms without cholesterol, no saturated fats, low sodium, tons of gunpowder and a uniformed view of the outside world. As an observer from the outside I was interested in the leader of the free world part of the new American president. I was unimpressed. That the USA was the last superpower on the planet interested in stability in the regions where it has strategic interests or faithful allies was no news. I dosed through the forced discussions on foreign policy during the debates. Even though they were debating during the last rites of the peace process in Palestine and the removal of Slobodan Milosevic in the Balkans they produced nothing but embarrassing clichés. The message was that the rhetoric might change, but the basics would remain the same. If there was a problem in the US approach towards the Middle East and South-Eastern Europe it remained unnoticed. It sounded as though, to both candidates, the world didn't matter.

It was surprising to see that, to Americans, their ideas about America didn't matter either. Most of the last stages of the campaign were dedicated to an academic diatribe about compensation for the cost of prescription drugs for the retired who cannot afford them and fifth graders who cannot read. It was a strange third world polemic in contradiction with the general idea of "the longest period of prosperity and unprecedented wealth." It was marginal, but in certain moments it sounded real. Maybe the only problem America really has is the cost of prescription drugs for the elderly poor and the performance of public schools in destitute neighbourhoods. But the voters were not enchanted with the proposed solutions. With 200 plus million dollars spent, both campaigns were not cost effective. Half of the voters chose not to vote. Of the remaining half, 40 per cent were faithful Democrats and 40 per cent faithful Republicans. They sounded like citizens of Bushestan and Gorestan, two unfriendly states with a common border and territorial ambitions in the land of the undecided. The decisive vote should come from the 20 per cent of undecided. The winner would be the candidate who would persuade them that he was the solution. Neither did. Neither even offered a credible definition of what the problem might be.

Confronted with the impossible choice between only two similar products with no extra features or bonuses, Americans couldn't choose. They split in half and embarrassed the greatest democracy in the world. And then for three weeks they couldn't decide whom they had chosen. George Bush received fewer votes than Al Gore but won the election. On Sunday night the vote in Florida was certified, Bush got the electoral vote, but couldn't declare victory. Al Gore insists that more Americans intended to vote for him and is demanding another recount. The Democrats are promising to drag the election through another week of court proceedings that will go up to the Supreme court in Washington.

In the three weeks of screaming, demonstrations, recounts and accusations of electoral irregularities and even of fraud, could be heard a sigh of relief from the free and the occupied world. There is no doubt that America is a beautiful democracy, but it's just as imperfect as any other. There is choice after all.

Related stories:
All hat and no cattle
The Florida fiasco 23 - 29 November 2000
The Undecided States of America 23 - 29 November 2000
Democracy laid bare 16 - 22 November 2000
See US Election 2000

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