The Changing Face Of Democracy

The Changing Face of "Democracy"

The nation we knew as the United States is no more. The fair, war-weary republic that we've all known and loved has been replaced by a tired war hungry, that has been so split that it is hardly worthy of being called the "United" States. But what happened, one might ask. When looking into the past, the major turning point occurred in the year 2000. In that year, the dynastic candidate George W. Bush was elected president, and since has reigned with an iron will to turn the United States into the nation that it is today.

Going back to the year 2000, the inside facts are plenty. The primary elections chose two candidates: the republican George Bush and the Democrat Al George. From the start, this election had epic proportions as tremendous amounts of capital were being spent on both sides of the political fence. Weary of the constant bickering, all were happy to tune in election night to see the turnout of a hard years work. But what did people see that night; only the most controversial election in 230 years of American history. Not only was the vote still undecided, but the indecision would continue to last for months afterwards. The trouble was in the state of Florida, where the votes were not able to be counted correctly, resulting in a recount and then another recount of the votes as Robert Johnston, founder of the Johnston Archive writes, "All votes in Florida were counted twice; some were counted three or four times" (Johnston 1). But in the end the supreme court of Florida had to step in and declared that Bush had won the election. It was only afterwards that it turned out that Al Gore would have originally won the election as Johnston continues, "California declined to count their absentee ballots; Florida Democrats rejected thousands of votes by U.S. service men and women; and Democrats nationwide garnered illegal votes from non-citizens and felons. If these situations had not occurred, Al Gore might not have the popular vote either" (Johnston 1). But the Party, the white house said that didn't happen, and Bush was off to wonderful well-omened run as the United States 42nd president.

At the beginning of his two terms, the first thing the Bush administration did in changing the United States was to go after its environmental laws, "The Bush administration took nearly 150 actions to undermine environmental protections over the first year, consistent with its historic assault on the nation's environmental safeguards" (NRDC 1).