Great events, little men

US Election 2004 was one of the most keenly contested, widely watched and politically significant elections in recent American history. Seldom before has an election had to bear so much of the weight of the world’s expectations. This election was widely seen as having a momentous significance for the shape of the world order to come. Even though they cannot vote, the rest of the world watched these elections as if these were their own. The elections were viewed as nothing less than a referendum on George Bush’s vision of the world. For some this vision represented a promethean unilateralism: a self-defeating vision that seeks to remake the world in America’s own image and according to its interests. Even though John Kerry’s vision of the world, and his way out of the quagmire in Iraq, remains unclear, the world watched as if its fate hung on the outcome. For some, the candidates represented the choice between acting tough and acting weak; for others, a choice between acting recklessly and acting prudently. But few doubt that the choice mattered.

The election also marked a milestone in a bitter ideological battle that had consumed American politics since George Bush assumed office. It was the first presidential election after 9/11, the date that changed American identity itself beyond recognition. The domestic drama was no less important. We had a Republican president, running a large fiscal deficit whose consequences for the world economy was considered significant. We had an America still in a state of vulnerability that had taken the lustre off some of its liberties. We had an America still in a contest between an easy liberalism of an open society and a stern moralism of the Christian right. And we had the classic battle between tax cuts for the rich and welfare for the poor.

But this election made for scintillating drama as well because a close outcome and vitriolic political rhetoric make for gripping spectacle. The fact that the outcome had at one point appeared to hang on the broadcast messages of the world’s most wanted fugitive is only a reminder of how peculiar this election was. It was as if when Osama bin Laden sneezes, America will catch a cold. It came as a grim reminder of how bizarrely global American politics had become in this election. Winston Churchill once said that past centuries were made by little events but great men, ours is fated to be made by great events but little men. Perhaps it is something of a disappointment that neither Kerry nor Bush appeared to measure up to the stature commensurate with the responsibilities of presidentship. But at least the contest between them was a meaningful one.