This is America, now

Richard Ford gets gloomy in the Guardian:

"First, let me say that I hope I'm wrong. I was wrong about the election, after all. But, gradually, and with reluctance, I came to realise, as I watched our highest rated, longest-running reality TV show - the 2004 United States presidential election - that a significant majority of my countrymen do not share my understanding of our country's character and my view of its moral future. The people who don't share my view, instead, share (with many, many others) the belief that guns should be easier to get here, that the world's environment shall suffer so our rich can get richer, that religions and government should draw more closely together and influence life and that humane scientific research should be curtailed by religious belief.

"And more - that elderly American citizens should pay more for their medication, that female reproductive rights should be controlled by the government, that homosexuals are not full citizens, that the Iraq war is a good idea, the lost lives worth losing and that telling big lies to the public is the way to bring these views into reality."