Since the 'stolen' election of 2000 the Republican Party has set out its values with a starkness not revealed even during the despised regimes of Nixon and Reagan. This has yielded a rich seam of material for satirical film-makers, caricaturists and polemicists, though at some cost for dispassionate analysis of the political scene. Cartoonish simplicities abound. The electoral geography of the United States, so vividly realised in the 2000 presidential election results, appears to possess its own crude straightforwardness, with Republicans dominant in the conservative heartland but enjoying less appeal on the urban coastline.

LRB 4 November 2004 | PDF Download