EDITORIAL- Don’t jump on the ex-pat bandwagon

Moments after Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., conceded defeat to once-and-future President George W…. Moments after Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., conceded defeat to once-and-future President George W. Bush, disappointed liberals across the country spoke in one voice with one clear message: “We’re going to Canada.”

OK, maybe not every liberal. Still, all over campus people were discussing jumping ship to our great, nationalized-health care-having neighbor to the North. And that’s no way to deal with defeat.

While many are brokenhearted and even disgusted with the election’s outcome, the solution isn’t to drop out of politics and flee the country. Expatriates may have a cool, ’20s-Hemingway mystique; however, becoming one means throwing in the towel on the United States. Ex-pats have left because “the war to end all wars” didn’t, and “separate but equal” wasn’t, but leaving after an election is just being a sore loser.

Instead of being defeatists, Democrats should rally and build on the momentum Kerry started, reexamine their methods and messages, hone a platform and make the United States a true two-party system, rather than the one-and-a-half-party system we have now.

People are galvanized. Tuesday’s election had the highest voter turnout since that other election featuring a J.F.K., the to-the-wire 1960 Kennedy-Nixon race. The challenge is now transforming election-year Democrats and Republicans into political party animals.

Minorities and young people, the most likely demographics to feel ignored or disenfranchised, flocked to the polls. Rather than letting this bubble of political might deflate, both parties should capitalize on it. We’re here. We voted. Now keep us interested and involved.

Liberal Democrats, often accused of being unpatriotic by the likes of Ann Coulter, especially need to hammer home the message that they’re in this for the long haul. Americans might have four more years of Bush, but that’s four years to prove that dissent isn’t unpatriotic, that there is room for a vocal plurality, for spontaneous upwelling, for crossing party lines.

For his part, Bush, this time, won fair and square. Now he should actually try to unite instead of divide, and learn that the Bill of Rights isn’t multiple choice. If he wants our support during his lame-duck term, he needs to earn it.

This is still one of the best countries on this lonely rock, and we’re damn proud and lucky to be here. Leaving is for quitters. And besides, there’s nothing to do in Canada now that hockey season’s been postponed.