The LA Times today runs with this article above the fold, which makes note of “100,000 anti-America protestors” in Britain.

I think the author is confused. Sure, a lot of those protesters were anti-America, but a lot, and my guess is the majority of them, are simply anti-Bush. Now that we’ve re-elected (some would say simply elected for the first time) President Bush there will probably be a lot more anti-American sentiment worldwide than previously. I’ll leave it to people who are smarter than me to tell you how that might affect our global influence, but the short version is that the Euro is getting stronger, the EU is becoming a solid world power (they're big like the US, but get more votes in international institutions), anti-Americanism is a popular platform in Democracies worldwide, and we just re-elected the President who ran on "multi-lateralism is for pussies and fags."

But let’s not be confused. Bush is not America and America is not Bush. 48% of Americans didn’t even vote for the man. Protesting Bush, or being anti-Bush, is NOT THE SAME as being anti-American. This is something this journalist, and far too many right-wingers, seem unable to grasp. And that in itself is a problem.

George W. Bush seems to think that he and his ideological brethren are America. To insult them, or to disagree with them, is tantamount to treason. The administration is famously closed-minded, coming to conclusions and then searching out the evidence which supports the conclusions they’ve already reached while denying anything that might disprove it. They did this most famously, and disastrously, in the run-up to war with Iraq, which represented a stellar combination of intelligence failures, ideological blinders, and an impatience with the peace process that is truly stunning. And that was with supposed moderates and civilians like Powell and Tenet, on the case. Now they have both been replaced with yes men.

Condi Rice and Porter Goss’s main qualifications for their new posts is loyalty. Condi is considered rather inept at resolving interagency disputes, of which there were many during her tenure as NSA. She is now supposed to be our Chief Diplomat? She is supposed to present our case to a world which increasingly fears and distrusts us? And Porter Goss has already begun purging the CIA of “liberal Democrats.” The fact that these liberals might be, you know, good at their jobs, is apparently of no consequence. If they don’t swear fealty to Bush then they have no place working for the government at all.

Is this truly what One Party rule gets us? Didn’t HW head the CIA when Carter and his Democratic majority ran the country?

But this all speaks to a disturbing larger trend. The Authoritarianization (if it’s not a word it should be) of not just the US, but the entire world. China’s leading rebellious filmmaker sold out with Hero, a tale of Nationalism and faith in single state with a single all-powerful ruler which was readily accepted by the Chinese communist government. Hero then became, despite it’s creepily State above the People thematics, a huge crossover hit here in the US. Putin consolidates his iron grip on Russia and expresses his great pleasure that Bush won over Kerry. We can only guess why.

The great irony, of course, is that as the President leads the charge for “Democratization” of the world, he does nothing to scold his “good friend” Putin, nor to curb his own authoritarian tendencies. Censorship, restricted civil liberties, a one party state with a ruler inextricably wound up with the identity of the country itself. This is a road all too often traveled, and one we best not go too far down. We're not all that far gone as it is, but far enough that it's fair for someone to lean over and say "hey, maybe we should stop and look at the map."

Regardless of one’s political leanings, this is a problem everyone should be paying attention to. Democrats, as the party out of power, have a lot more to fear. But moderate and even hard-right-but-principled Republicans should think long and hard about what they are willing to sacrifice to achieve their political ends. It may not be worth it.