The January 20 Toilet Flush

At 12 Noon on January 20, the twice-elected 43rd President George W. Bush will step down as leader of the United States.

At that precise moment, a lot of Americans will be flushing their toilets.

Word is spreading through emails, phone calls, workplace conversations and household vows (I’ve seen two mass emails myself in as many weeks.) As Bush departs the White House, Americans who lacked the fortitude for impeachment will at least offer a symbolic flush on the most reviled and divisive presidential regime in living memory.

Is it deserved?

That Bush will exit the White House with approval ratings below Nixon after Watergate, is almost irrelevant. Only 16 percent of people questioned in Monday’s CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey say things are going well in the country today, with eighty-three percent say the country has been on the wrong road. Yet if there’s one thing the Bush presidency proved, it’s that a good enough propaganda machine can make people do anything.

And propaganda was the meat of the Bush years. The specter of 9-11 was trotted out to justify any power grabs, regardless of Constitutional restraints.

Bush bequeaths to his successor a nation in smoldering ruin, wracked by two wars and a disintegrating economy. He leaves with the Constitution red-inked and tattered. With the utmost arrogance, his regime decided who were the “real Americans” and who the traitors, and leading by example they stoked a mob mentality unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Passion and prejudice became the way of life.

On his watch, the very worst audacious corruption, nepotism, and dishonesty prompted classic conservatives, like those at The American Conservative, to pounce on the Bush betrayal of the United States.

Bush became the messiah for a new generation of hard-line neoconservatives. With greed in their hearts and hate on their tongues, they fueled an attempt at American fascism in the mold of Joe McCarthy. Habeas corpus is a civilizing principle we’ve had for centuries; Bush flushed it down the toilet. Due process clauses which appear several times in the Constitution were steamrolled. And a bloodlust most unbecoming was encouraged to a frenzied pitch.

How did science fare? Under the brutal claws of a notoriously anti-scientific regime, America lost the edge in numerous promising fields of research. While our president was busy threatening to interfere in a Florida “right to die” issue, America failed to take the lead – or even mutter about taking the lead – to take on cancer, diabetes, heart disease... any of the maladies which afflict millions nationwide. Is it possible that with united national intent, we could finally develop cures and improve the quality of life forever?  Sorry, I couldn’t hear you over the exploding bombs.

Leaders are supposed to lead, and they serve not only as the “face” of America to the world, but also as an inspiration. That doesn’t mean what is being inspired is necessarily a good thing. When the President relies on “red meat rhetoric” instead of intelligent discussion, fear instead of strength, jingoisim instead of patriotism, and blind faith instead of rationality, he tends to encourage those things in others.

On a personal level, I gave Bush every benefit of the doubt. I listened to his speeches, and followed his work, and grew increasingly alarmed by his actions. I watched part of the American public transform into Bushites who wore their devotion to their sacred idol as a badge. When I brought up the Constitution, I listened to the onslaught of baseless platitudes pouring from so many lips. Debate and discussion – the lifeblood of a Republic – were swiftly traded for a mob mentality. It was as infuriating as horrifying, and it really did begin to echo some of the darker chapters in western civilization.

I noted that two of the biggest intelligence failures in U.S history happened while Bush presided; that the government response to Hurricane Katrina was despicable; that evangelical fervor became the lingua franca to promote ideology over reason; that those who stood against fear were called cowards.

So is a farewell flush on January 20th deserved?

It’s better than he deserves.

But sometimes symbolism has its own satisfaction.