Is the United States turning into the Republic of Gilead? That was the name of the theocratic Christian America that Margaret Atwood imagined in her novel The Handmaid’s Tale. Following the November election in the US, a map circulating on the internet showed the blue states of the east and west coasts annexed to Canada, with the red-state portions of the country that had voted Republican labelled “Jesusland.”
The election of 2004 confirmed the status of the Republican party in the US as the majority party at all levels – but it did not prove that Americans have turned into reactionaries. Unlike Nixon and Reagan, who were re-elected in landslides, Bush barely squeaked by. He remains a divisive and unpopular president. And self-described conservatives, like self-described liberals, remain a minority in the US.
The American right has managed to unite the centre with the right in a majority coalition. But it has not converted the centre to the right. Indeed, in this election, as in 2000, Bush downplayed his hardline conservatism and campaigned on the basis of widely shared American values. The Republicans have successfully reached out to red-state America – while the Democrats have turned their backs on it.
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