A divided country begets a divided home.
President Bush’s close victory over Sen. John Kerry
Tuesday served to highlight the political rift gripping the nation
and my apartment.
One of my roommates, Anthony DeFrenza, is a Democrat; the other,
Alex Brizolis, is a Republican. This sort of ideological balance is
rare at UCLA; a Daily Bruin exit poll of university affiliates
showed 82 percent voted for Kerry while just 16 percent voted for
Bush.
More so than UCLA, the constituents of my apartment reflect the
division of the country, as Bush garnered 51 percent of the popular
vote while Kerry got 48 percent.
So I sat down with my roommates to hold a civilized town-hall
meeting about the state of the nation. I asked both DeFrenza and
Brizolis about the prospects of four more years under Bush and what
a Kerry presidency might have been like.
“There is some uncertainty about what would happen with
Kerry but now we are stuck with that doofus,” DeFrenza
said.
Brizolis speculated about a Kerry presidency, noting that the
Democrat would have emphasized “trying to improve our
reputation in the world as a benevolent power and in the long run
it would have ended up hurting us.”
Brizolis and DeFrenza share relatively similar views on many of
the social issues that took center stage this year. Brizolis breaks
with his party’s conservative base when it comes to social
issues ““ both he and DeFrenza support gun control and are
pro-choice ““ but the two are polar opposites on foreign
policy.
“I see it as a stubbornness on Alex’s part and on a
higher level, Bush’s part, to not admit he’s
wrong,” DeFrenza said. “A lot of people thought the war
in Iraq was great in the beginning and we were lied to. The best
way to solve the terrorist problem is to make (terrorists) hate us
a little less. So attacking Iraq was wrong.”
Ooh, that “stubbornness” comment is going to make
for an awkward dinner tonight at the apartment.
But as my roommates watched election returns Tuesday night there
was actually a lack of awkwardness. DeFrenza said he noticed that
Brizolis had a smile on his face throughout the night but never
rubbed it in.
“I don’t think gloating was necessary,”
Brizolis said. “(DeFrenza) cooked dinner the night after the
election as a conciliatory offering. That was a nice
gesture.”
DeFrenza bristles at the notion that the beef tacos he prepared
were a gesture of appeasement. “I basically cooked myself
dinner and allowed him to eat some,” Defrenza said.
This week I asked several other moderate Republicans if they are
bothered by the fact that in voting for Bush, they had aligned
themselves with an increasingly conservative party.
These Republicans told me they had not lost any sleep over it,
while Democrats said that moderate Republicans who voted for Bush
are ignorant and should be ashamed for helping to reelect a
president who will cater to his conservative base, while ignoring
the moderate Republicans.
I think Democrats who lambast the moderate Bush voters on this
account (maybe they could be lambasted for other, better reasons)
should look at the situation from the other side.
Put it this way: If a large bloc of John Kerry-voting communists
had helped get the Democrat elected, the Democratic National
Committee would have authorized a $4 million borscht initiative and
Kerry would have declared Stalin’s birthday a national
holiday.
As I walked to class on the morning of Nov. 3, I wondered if the
political divide in my home would be apparent on campus. I expected
to see signs of violent rebellion from the Democrats. Perhaps a few
burned cars near Ackerman Union. I also imagined gun-happy
Republican students shooting AK-47s into the air in
celebration.
Instead, I saw the strangest thing.
There in Bruin Plaza sat a giant mobile video game center where
liberal students could mourn Tuesday’s loss by playing video
games ““ maybe a sports game, or perhaps America’s Army:
Special Forces.
That’s right, the official game of the U.S. Army, in Bruin
Plaza on Nov. 3. Even my roommates could agree that the sight was a
bizarre coincidence given a large part of the UCLA student
body’s dissent for the war in Iraq and current U.S. foreign
policy.
In the game, players take on a variety of realistic missions in
pursuit of Green Beret status. I recommend using the MP5SD6
Remington 870 shotgun for forced entry when participating in an
unconventional warfare mission. I asked one student loitering near
the America’s Army kiosk, which was draped in faux camouflage
for added effect and drew quite a few students, if there was any
meaning behind the placement of the game in Bruin Plaza the day
after Bush’s victory.
He thought it was a recruitment tactic for the army.
I think it’s unfortunate that UCLA students would rather
play a video game than express their political beliefs, especially
when that video game is the official game of the organization
waging a war that the majority of UCLA students oppose.
I’m sure my roommates will have a lot to say about
that.
E-mail Miller at dmiller@media.ucla.edu.