This Australian student no doubt speaks for many observers of the U.S. election from abroad:
Dear Professor Leiter
Hi. I am an Australian student (of philosophy, actually, and maths). As an Australian I have had to undergo not one but two depressing elections recently. There was the one in which I got to vote, though that vote ended up amounting to very little, as the election saw a return to power of our current conservative government with an incresed majority in the lower house and newly awarded control of the senate; and there was the one I cared about - the American election.
Not that I don't care about what happens over here. It is only that I am aware of the obvious truth that a bad Australian government is relatively limited in the amount of damage it can do. Also, domestic policy, while bitterly fought in the details, is not really going to move too far, by world standards. Noone here, for instance, would dream of doing away with universal health care, or unemployment benefits (I'm not sure you even have such a thing in America). We are pretty well looked after, here.
A bad American government, on the other hand, could mean the end of civilization. Perhaps that's a little hysterical, I know, but I really felt the fate of the world was to be decided in this last election. I could not and still can not think of a single event that could make the world better than a change of administration in America. Perhaps you can imagine my frustration and feelings of impotence knowing that there was nothing I could do to influence the outcome. I desperately wanted some way to be able to engage in events. My way of doing this was to watch The News Hour with Jim Lehrer religiously (we get it on a channel called 'SBS'; it screens news-services from all over the world, mostly for the benefit of immigrants and expatriates). Man, I love that show. It's the highest quality news show on Australian television, which is an indication of the unfortunate state of journalism in Australia, overall.
An aside: my frustration at being a bystander to decisions that determine the outcome of the world was bad, but it must be nothing compared to that of a citizen of a country that is on the arse-end of American foreign policy. In Australia, if the wrong government gets elected in America, your Prime Minister looks smug. In Iraq, if the wrong government gets elected in America, your family gets blown up. And you have no say in the processes that caused this, and no way to make those responsible accountable.
Anyway, on election night (day, here) I went to the country, to my parents' house (they have cable, and thus get CNN), and watched the slow death of hope. I was gutted. I'm still a little shell shocked. Since then, I have been trying to find some solace in the internet. This is where you come in. I have been reading your blog regularly since then, and it has been of enormous comfort to get the impression, as I have, that there are a community of people over there that resist all this madness. Thank you.
I knew that already, of course. I have a number of American friends, many of whom seem to share my political opinions, generally, and I am aware that the U.S. is a big and complicated place, with room enough for many voices. But it is one to know in the abstract that there must be resistance, and another to see it happening.
I am a fan of sanity; it is rare and precious commodity. You seem also to be fan. There is a brotherhood in that.
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