November 3, 2004 – that’s the day the world learned that Bush had been re-elected. I’d like to confess my first reaction to the results. Are you ready for some ugly narcissism?

I hope so, because when I saw the headlines, I immediately thought: “This is going to be really good for my book.” Why? Because I knew that the average citizen had just tremendously disappointed the intellectuals who would ordinarily be unsympathetic to complaints about the rationality of the average citizen.

In my view, the 2004 election is awfully weak evidence for voter irrationality. It’s just one election, after all, and hindsight is 20/20. But I suspect that many of my readers see things differently.

So what do you think? Did Bush’s re-election really have a big effect on the way that thoughtful Democrats view democracy? Comments by Democrats count extra!