Í World Class í dag sá ég strák í bol, sem á stóð: “Don’t be economic girlie men”. Ég hélt í alvöru að Genni vinur minn (sem ég hef ekki heyrt frá lengi, hint hint) væri sá eini, sem fyndist þessi komment frá Schwartzenegger sniðug. Það, sem meira er, ég held að gaurinn sé í SUS. Þessir “economic girlie men”, sem Arnie talaði um, eru þeir, sem telja að fjárlagahalli Bandaríkjanna sé of mikill. Semsagt, allir hagfræðingar í heimi, fyrir utan þá, sem eru á launum hjá Bush.

Allavegana, ég hef aldrei talað um kosningarnar og nenni eiginlega ekki að gera það. Mér datt hins vegar í hug að birta hérna hluta úr bréfi til fyrrverandi herbergisfélaga míns úr háskóla. Hérna er kaflinn, þar sem ég talaði um kosningarnar í USA stuttu eftir að þær voru haldnar.

I still can’t believe how things went. I’m sure you’ve felt the same way I have.

I was really into the elections.  I stayed up to watch the debates, and all the programs I could catch on them.  On election night I went to an event hosted by the American Embassy in an art gallery in Reykjavik.  I then stayed up at home until around 4AM, but finally fell asleep.  I woke up the next day, turned on my computer and was convinced Kerry had won.  I couldn’t believe it.  And that’s sort of been my mood over the last days.  I still can’t believe it, and I get really annoyed talking about it.

I *really* thought Kerry would win.  I *really* thought more than 60% of the population would show up to vote.  I’m so disappointed, so I can only imagine how you feel, since you have to live there.  I just want to shake people who really didn’t think it was worth their time to spend two hours of their precious time to vote.  I just cannot understand them, and I can’t understand the people who vote for Bush. That’s just something I have to accept. I even have an Icelandic friend who thinks Bush is brilliant. No matter how hard I try, I just can’t understand him. I think I told you sometime that most of the time I can understand my opponents in Icelandic politics, but I *just can’t* understand Bush or his supporters.

I actually read a good article about the whole blue/red state America by an Icelandic leftist.  The thing is that the America we know from TV is sort of the blue state America. We see all those shows from New York, Chicago, L.A., and we really don’t understand those red state people, who find banning gay marriage more important than stopping the U.S. from attacking other countries or a healthy economy.  We just cannot understand them.  So that’s basically the feeling.  We’ve given up on trying to understand America. I saw a poll somewhere where 90% of the Icelandic population wanted Kerry to win. Those same 90% basically think Bush is an evil moron.

The remarkable thing is really that even though I lived for more than 3 years in the U.S., I completely failed to see the red side of America.  I don’t know why, but all my friends are Democrats, even those I made before I went to college.  I remember those dorky conservative guys who wrote for that conservative paper at NU, but I really never got to know them, only the Democrats. It’s a bit weird.  Oh well.

Anyways, you deserve better than Bush.