Throwing Postelection Brickbats and Bouquets

Nice try, Niall Ferguson, but your attempt to gloss over the deep divisions (“A Split Nation? Don’t Believe It,” Commentary, Nov. 3) created by the most polarizing president in my 77-year lifetime are feeble.

As a senior fellow of the very conservative Hoover Institute, you want to create a feeling of sweetness and light, to play down activist dissent to the ultraconservative agenda of the Bush administration. But to deny that the nation is deeply divided would be laughable, if it were not so serious.

President Bush’s margin of victory will be roughly 3% of the vote and less than 1% of the total population.

You say that no blows have been struck, though there have been some reports of political arguments ending in fisticuffs. And there may be no revolution, but the arrogance of Bush and his administration, especially the neocons, certainly is revolting.

If Bush pushes his far-right agenda even further in a second term, as the pundits predict and administration rhetoric suggests, he will widen the chasm that divides us even more.

Ken Fermoyle

Woodland Hills

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Franklin Delano Roosevelt stated that we had nothing to fear but fear itself. The American people have opted to elect fear. Bush got himself reelected by convincing Americans they would live in fear without him. Though he may not have created the original fear, he fanned the flames of fear to get reelected.

The last two elections have established we are two Americas: one that has disdain for anyone who disagrees with our policies, that believes that its moral convictions should be imposed on everyone and that thinks protecting the environment is bad for business; the other wants to work with the world to make it a better place, places individual choice over group censorship and understands that protecting the environment is our duty.

Bruce N. Miller

Venice

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When Bush decides to invade Iran or Syria (more axis of evil), and he needs to reinstitute the draft because his Army doesn’t have enough guys, when the rate of body bags increases, when even British Prime Minister Tony Blair can no longer stomach our arrogance, when the skies grow darker with smog, when the rivers froth with pollution, when the national debt forces the U.S. into bankruptcy, don’t blame California!

Kim Monson

San Pedro

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Despite the best efforts of such negative liars as Michael Moore and his ilk, more than 58 million Americans voted to keep Bush in office for four more years. One glance at a red and blue map of the United States shows how out of touch California is with the majority of our country. Congratulations on a victory for the huge silent majority of us who value a moral and conservative lifestyle.

Catherine Wirtz

Westlake Village

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Our next step is now clear: California must secede from the Union.

Stefan Frazier

Los Angeles

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If California leaves the United States and becomes the world’s fifth-largest economy, please include Washington state and Oregon. As a Washingtonian, I am ready to join up with either California or British Columbia. Democratic states are subsidizing virtually every Republican-leaning state except Texas, with federal spending in those states exceeding federal taxes paid by state residents and businesses by up to $6,000 per man, woman and child. Texas, of course, doesn’t need to be subsidized because California supports it directly through high energy prices.

The economies of the Republican states would collapse without the West Coast and the Northeast, but they gang up against us in voting. Short of seceding, maybe it is time for a major tax on these states for their use of all West Coast ports to equalize the balance of payments among the states.

Walter L. Johnson

Vancouver, Wash.

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Thank you, red states. God bless.

Dick Schneider

Oak View, Calif.