The Red and the Blue
A Harvard professor worries about America's coming civil war.
by Dean Barnett
05/12/2006 12:00:00 AM

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/205mgqtr.asp

D. QUINN MILLS is worried. The respected Albert J. Weatherhead, Jr. Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School fears that America may be headed toward calamity.

Convinced that two straight elections which he characterizes as "tied and disputed" have gone to the Republicans and that good-faithed, but fatigued, Democrats have "exhausted all other legal options," Mills cautions that a third straight cliffhanger marred by Republican skullduggery could well result in a civil war. By which he means a real, honest-to-goodness Civil War, except this time around it won't be the Blue and the Gray but the Blue and the Red. To warn America about this gathering storm, Mills has written a novel titled Blue! Red! (available online here) and is conducting a sparsely attended online seminar on the subject for the Harvard community.

An often compelling read about a polarized electorate heading to explosion over a contested presidential election in 2008, Blue! Red! nevertheless sometimes veers into the realm of the unintentionally hilarious.

Even though the book begins with the mandatory disclaimer that it "is a work of fiction and that any resemblance to real persons is purely coincidental," the plucky Democratic candidate in the book is a female senator ("Sheila Brinton") whose husband was once president of the United States. Senator Brinton shows a lot more intestinal fortitude than the previous Democratic candidates for president who, in the book's retelling, meekly allowed themselves to be cheated out of the presidency.

"I want to keep fighting," Senator Brinton declares. "I want the Presidency with every fiber of my being - I want it for the Party, for our people who've been beaten down . . . I'm afraid that if I concede now, and I run again next time, they'll steal the election again. If they steal election after election, we have no choice but to not accept it. I'll not back down; I'll not concede like those soft men who were candidates before me conceded."

Strangely, Blue! Red! foresees the college football bowl games becoming the site of armed conflict between rabid partisans (with Republicans naturally being the aggressors). A newswoman in the novel grimly reports:

Without anticipation by security forces, hundreds of people made their way into thefootball bowl games with placards and streamers favoring John Cox or Sheila Brinton.

When fans in the stands began to cheer for opposing candidates, fights broke out. Unfortunately, some fans snuck weapons in under their clothes so the fights have escalated into knifings and multiple shootings.

As a result, every bowl game today has been canceled while authorities evacuate the stadiums and police struggle to get the fighting under control. Thousands of Brinton supporters have fled the stadiums with angry mobs of Cox adherents in pursuit, often overtaking laggards and beating them.

In other words, Mills seems to believe that the Chick-fil-a Peach Bowl could be the 21st century's Antietam.

In Mills's forecast, the Rose Bowl takes on particular significance. "The Granddaddy of Them All" features a Big 10 Champion from a Red State and a Pac 10 champion from a Blue State; the game is played in an empty arena lest violence erupt amongst the politically obsessed boosters, alumni, and students. In spite of the emptiness of the cavernous Pasadena stadium, the Rose Bowl becomes an event of intense national interest as the two squads serve as surrogates for the battling presidential candidates.

OF COURSE it's hard to imagine that the general public would care so deeply about the Rose Bowl in a year when it's not the national championship game. But there are even more fanciful aspects of Mills's grim scenario. First and foremost being that only the most extreme left-wingers consider the 2004 election disputed.

Which isn't to suggest that Mills's project is without any merit. Even if he overstates, the case, he correctly observes that some Americans have lost faith in the reliability of their election system. While institutions such as the Wall Street Journal have railed about the dangerous deficiencies in the system for over a decade, even after the Florida debacle of 2000, state and federal governments led by both parties have failed to meaningfully address the system's flaws.

And there's nothing inherently wrong with contemplating worst case scenarios. Although the suggestion of a second civil war will no doubt strike most people as implausible in the extreme, it's at worst a harmless intellectual exercise.

BUT WHERE MILLS STUMBLES is in his assumptions about American political passions. If you're reading this story, you're strange; strange in a good way, but strange nonetheless. You're by definition a high-end consumer of news. Few Americans have ever heard of, let alone often read, political magazines or websites.

Most Americans maintain an attitude towards politics that is best described as benign indifference. Even when the Bush-Gore battle hung in the balance, concerned partisans did not take to the streets in significant numbers. When the Supreme Court put an end to that struggle, there were some delirious Republicans and some despondent Democrats. But most of America shrugged its shoulders and began looking forward to the second season of Survivor.

There's a good explanation for this. On the global political menu of ice cream flavors, if we called George W. Bush vanilla and Mahmoud Ahmadenijad New York Super Fudge Chunk (with extra nuts), our elections give Americans a choice between vanilla and French vanilla. Elections matter and ideas have consequences. But the American political system has already worked out the biggest questions--democracy, free market capitalism, individual rights, suffrage, etc. Even in the most polarized of times, the differences between the parties aren't so stark as to warrant a manning of the barricades. That's a very good thing.

Walking around Harvard Yard, however, one may get a different sense. Sometimes it must seem like Paris in 1789 with all the politically inspired fury sprouting up among the lattes. But if Harvard professors want to storm the Bastille--or start a civil war--they'll have to do it themselves. And that's not very likely.

After all, they don't even want Army recruiters on campus.

Dean Barnett writes on politics at SoxBlog.com

紅色美國與藍色美國

迪恩·巴奈特/文 吳萬偉/譯

http://guancha.gmw.cn/show.aspx?id=8851

哈佛大學教授擔心美國即將到來的內戰。

哈佛大學商學院受人尊敬的阿爾伯特韋瑟黑德基金會（Albert J. Weatherhead, Jr.）企業管理教授奎恩米爾斯（D. QUINN MILLS）非常擔心美國可能走向災難。

相信他描述的“勢均力敵，充滿爭議”的兩次直接選舉都讓共和黨人占了便宜，民主黨的忠誠支持者疲倦之余已經“用盡了所有其他的法律手段。”米爾斯警告說第三場勢均力敵的扣人心弦的選舉如果仍然有共和黨的欺騙污點完全可能導致戰爭的結果。他指的真正的，實實在在的內戰，只不過這次不是在北方和南方之間的戰爭，而是藍色美國和紅色美國之間的戰爭。為了警告美國人這個即將到來的風暴，米爾斯已經寫了小說《藍色，紅色》（Blue! Red! http://redbluenovel.blogspot.com )而且在哈佛校園組織了對這個話題的網上討論會，參加者不是很多。

常常激發閱讀興趣的是關於雙方的鐵杆支持者在2008年的總統大選中衝突爆發。但是《藍色，紅色》有時候改變觀點進入沒有料到的狂歡的領域。

雖然小說的開頭是強制性的免責聲明“本書純屬虛構，和真實的人物相似純粹是巧合”。書中大膽的民主黨候選人是位女性參議員希拉·布林頓（Sheila Brinton），她的丈夫曾經擔任過美國總統。書中回憶說，布林頓參議員比前一屆民主黨總統候選人膽怯地乖乖被人從手中騙走了總統寶座表現出更多勇氣和毅力。

布林頓參議員宣稱“我要繼續戰鬥，我的每一塊肌肉都想當總統，我要為党贏得總統寶座，要為被壓迫的同胞贏得總統寶座。我擔心如果我現在妥協屈服，在下次選舉的時候，他們再次耍手段欺騙我們。如果他們一次又一次偷走選舉勝利，我們除了拒絕接受沒有別的選擇。我決不退卻，決不像前幾次候選人那些軟蛋那麼妥協屈服。”

奇怪的是，《藍色，紅色》預計大學橄欖球隊比賽成為狂熱的球迷武裝衝突的戰場。（共和黨人自然先動手）小說中女記者恐怖地報導說：

在安全部隊預料之外，幾百名手拿海報牌和旗幟的人沖進球場，他們有的支持約翰·考克斯（John Cox）有的支持布林頓。

當看臺上的球迷開始為對方的候選人加油時，衝突爆發了。不幸的是，有些球迷衣服下藏有武器，所以衝突很快演變成為捅刀子和相互開槍射擊。

結果，當天的每場橄欖求比賽都取消，當局清退體育館裏的人，員警竭力控制整個局面。數千名布林頓的支持者倉皇逃竄，考克斯的憤怒的暴徒在後面追趕，常常趕上拉在後面的人就痛打一頓。

換句話說，米爾斯好像相信橄欖球比賽（Chick-fil-a Peach Bowl）可能成為21世紀的安特提姆戰役（Antietam）。

在米爾斯的預言中玫瑰碗比賽（Rose Bowl）具有特別的意義。《給他們所有人特權》（The Granddaddy of Them All）描寫了來自紅色州的（Big 10 Champion）和來自藍色州的（Pac 10 champion）的比賽，在一個空場地進行，以防政治傾向明顯的支持者，校友和學生間暴力衝突發生。儘管多孔的帕薩迪那（Pasadena）體育館空空蕩蕩，玫瑰碗仍然成為深刻的國家利益的事件，因為兩個隊伍都是正在激烈競選的總統候選人的代理人。

當然很難想像普通老百姓在不是全國冠軍比賽的年份會這麼關心玫瑰碗。而且關於米爾斯的陰森的情景有更異想天開的地方。首先是只有最極端的左翼人士相信2004年的選舉是有爭議的。

這並不是說米爾斯的工程是沒有優點的。即使他用了誇張的說法，他正確指出了有些美國人對選舉制度的可靠性喪失了信心。儘管像華爾街雜誌這樣的機構十多年來攻擊該制度的危險的缺陷，即使在2000年佛羅里達災難後，兩党領導的州政府和聯邦政府都沒有進行對這個制度的缺陷有意義的討論。

預測最糟糕的結果沒有什麼錯。雖然第二次美國內戰的說法肯定讓很多人覺得根本不可能，但是最壞也不過是個沒有危害的思想練習。

但是米爾斯栽跟頭的地方是他假設美國人的政治熱情。如果你閱讀了這本小說，你會覺得奇怪，好方式的奇怪，但畢竟是奇怪。你肯定是個高檔的新聞消費者。很少美國人聽說過，更不用說讀過政治雜誌或者流覽政治網站了。

多數美國人對待政治的態度最多可以描述為溫和的冷漠。即使在布什和戈爾選舉糾紛的時候，關心的各自政黨的支持者走上街頭的人也不多。當最高法院最後做出裁定後，有些共和黨人感到欣喜若狂，有些民主黨人感到沮喪洩氣。但是多數美國人只是聳聳肩就開始期待Survivor的第二個賽季的比賽了。

對此有個很好的解釋。在冰淇淋風味全球政治菜單中，如果我們稱布希為香草冰淇淋，默罕默德阿哈邁德吉哈德（Mahmoud Ahmadenijad）紐約超大冰淇淋（New York Super Fudge Chunk）(外加果仁),我們的選舉給美國人在香草冰淇淋和和法國香草冰淇淋之間進行選擇。選舉是很重要的，思想是產生後果的。但是美國的政治制度已經解開了最大的難題---民主，自由市場資本主義，個人權利，選舉權等。即使在思想最兩極化的時代，兩黨之間的差別也沒有達到設置路障武鬥的程度。這是非常好的事情。

但是走在哈佛校園裏，人們得到另外一種感受。有時候那裏看起來像1789年法國大革命時期的巴黎，各種政治激情在人群中爆發。但是如果哈佛教授想攻佔巴士底獄---或者發動美國內戰---他們恐怕得親自動手才行。但是這可能性不大。

畢竟，他們甚至不願意讓部隊徵兵人員進入校園。