Last Tuesday presented us with troubling questions about the powerful divide in the United States. Regardless of who won Election 2004, the voting patterns of the country illustrate a distinct and disturbing division.

The war in Iraq was one of the main polarizing issues in this year's election. According to the CNN exit poll, 84 percent of the people who voted for Kerry disapproved of the war. The exact opposite was true for Bush, where nearly 90 percent of his supporters agreed with his pre-emptive invasion of Iraq.

There has also been a lot of talk about Bush's broadening support among Christian Conservatives and Evangelicals. David Broder of the Washington Posts concludes:

"The exit poll indicated that about 22 percent of [Tuesday's] voters were white evangelical or born-again Christians, three-quarters of whom went for Bush."

That amounts to about one-third of Bush’s total national vote.

The banning of same-sex marriage that was on the ballot in 11 states, passed by large margins and illustrated the overall acceptance and embracing of Homophobia. With a white self-proclaimed "Christian" conservative evangelical leader at the helm destroying lives of Iraqis abroad, to date over 100,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed, mostly women and children. By re-electing Bush, the United States not only ratified the war in Iraq, it showed the world that Americans overall could callously care less.

While both the war and homophobia are definitely dividers, America also showed the world that racism is alive and kicking in the good ol' U. S. of A, making it the underlying factor and still the number one divider in this country.

No more shunning serious conversations about the obvious. It is time to deal with it.

The following are voting demographic charts created from information compiled from the following sources: Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International for the National Election Pool, a consortium of ABC News, The Associated Press, CBS News, CNN, Fox News, NBC News, Zogby and the Population Center.

In order to effectively frame the dialogue and shape the language necessary for progressive change, we must first take an introspective and honest look at both who and how America voted in last week's election.

Whites, who were Protestants, conservative, affluent, or regular churchgoers cast the majority of the votes that went to Bush. He also captured a surprisingly high percentage (42) of votes from those earning $30,000 or less per year.

Single women overwhelmingly chose Kerry 63-36 percent, while Bush won among married women 54 to Kerry's 45 percent.

The Jewish vote remained heavily Democratic but a higher percentage of Jewish voters -- particularly Orthodox Jews and Russian émigrés -- voted for Bush this year. The exit poll figures show Bush received 25 percent of the Jewish vote. In 2000 Bush received only 19 percent of Jewish-American votes.

Calling the election results "a really tough defeat," some gay leaders took heart in national exit poll data indicating that 64 percent of Americans support same-sex marriage or civil unions, while only 35 percent oppose such legal recognition. ——Planet Out

The results of Black Tuesday gave a few leaders in the gay community a glimmer of hope in Cincinnati, Ohio. Despite heavy GOP campaigning within the African American community, which is quite conservative on the issue of same-sex marriage, voters overturned an anti-gay article in the City Charter by 54 percent to 46 percent.

Despite Bush's talk of a mandate, he actually split the popular vote with John Kerry. Nearly 90 percent of Bush's support came from whites. He lost African Americans nine to one and Asian Americans at a rate of two to one. It was the in South where Bush won the majority of his votes. He lost the popular vote in the East, Midwest and the West Coast.

As predicted in Black Faces in High Places, Blacks, Latinos, youth voters and other ethnic minorities cast their votes for John Kerry. He carried the Black vote 90-10, just one point less than Gores 2000 showing of 91-9.

Contrary to the news reports criticizing the youth vote, many young people did vote and the majority of them cast their votes for John Kerry.

Although John Kerry won the Latino vote 56-44, the results are revealing and troubling to some progressives. Bush seems to have yielded substantially more Hispanic votes than he did in 2000, garnering the highest Hispanic vote by a Republican presidential candidate. In fact, several pundits are crediting Bush's win primarily to his support among Hispanics. Some observers credit this to the increasing Hispanic involvement in the military. This is quite interesting considering no group has more families with members in the military than African Americans who are the least inclined to support American activities abroad.

While these results may appear disturbing there are a number of variables that must be considered. Glen Ford of the Black Commentary states:

Many Latinos are apparently headed in a different political direction, but we should not draw general conclusions without a nationality-by-nationality analysis. There is a whole world of Spanish-speakers in the Americas. There is no consensus on Latinos among African Americans, or among Latinos, themselves.

The Asian American vote showed disparate results. The Los Angeles Times reported that Asian Americans voted almost two to one in favor of John Kerry. However, it also found major differences within the Asian American community, with Vietnamese and Filipinos generally more favorable toward Bush, and Chinese Americans and Indian Americans choosing Kerry. In 2000 the overall Asian American voted 55-41 percent in favor of Al Gore.

Arab Americans shifted the most in this year's election, voting for Kerry by a 63-29 percent margin. In 2000 they chose Bush over Gore by a 45-28 percent.

The margin was exceptionally wide among Muslim Arab Americans who voted for Kerry over Bush 83 to six percent.

In the words of Howard Zinn:

Revolutionary change does not come as one cataclysmic moment (beware of such moments!) but as an endless succession of surprises, moving zigzag toward a more decent society. We don't have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world. Even when we don't "win," there is fun and fulfillment in the fact that we have been involved, with other good people, in something worthwhile. We need hope. The Optimism of Uncertainty

When you get right down to it John Kerry's defeat means nothing, but Bush's win means everything. No longer can we live in a land of delusion and denial about the growing acceptance of racism and intolerance in America. In typical Republican form, expect this racial divide to grow even wider, as the Bush Administration continues its enforce its us against them doctrine across the country.

The road to reclaim our country is a long one. Defining, framing and more importantly truly understanding race in America is not just the best chance we have; it is our only hope.

Discrimination :: Election 2004 :: Elections :: Polling :: Progressive Strategy :: Reference | Link