Letters to the Editor
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It has a name - Nationalism
We're about 80 years behind the curve on this one, but Bushism is classic nationalism. It bears all of the hallmarks of an extremely powerful central state that uses propaganda, ethnocentrism and fear-mongering to enhance its power. These tools are easy to get people to support, and Bush's people have been very good at using them.
In return, we've gotten nationalistic policies: degradation of liberty in exchange for "protection", demonization of others (France, "liberals","Islamo-fascists", immigrants), militarism and expansionism. But like all nationalism expansionist movements, it hit a snag.
Fortunately for our democracy, it hit a snag early and lost the support of the masses. I'm not suggesting that it's good what has happened in Iraq, I'm just suggesting that a nationalistic power will always go too far and end up the weaker for it. Better to have our nationalism end before it destroys the very fabric of our society than later when the results could have been catastrophic. The outcome in Iraq is not going to be good for us, but nationalism has never been good for any society in which it has sprung up. We're lucky that our system is set up to survive this bout with nationalism. Bush will soon be gone, and the nationalistic overtones to the McCain and Giuliani campaigns aren't taking off amongst the general population. Even if one of them becomes the next president, they will only be able to do so moving away from nationalism, and likely, into more of a classic conservative/libertarian type leadership.