Harness that anger.

• Author: Zinn, Howard
• Position: It Seems to Me - George W. Bush, reelection to the presidency

In the days after the election, it seemed that all my friends were either depressed or angry, frustrated or indignant, or simply disgusted. Neighbors who had never said more than hi to me stopped me on the street and delivered passionate little speeches that made me think they had just listened to a rebroadcast of H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, in which powerful creatures arrive on Earth to take it over.

But then I reconsidered: They had not been listening to H. G. Wells. There really were strange and powerful creatures that had just occupied the United States and now wanted to take over the rest of the world. Yes, Bush was reelected President, and whether there was fraud in the voting process or not, John Kerry quickly threw in the towel. The minnow called for reconciliation with the crocodile.

The reelected Bush triumphantly announced that he had the approval of the nation to carry out his agenda. There came no sign of opposition from what was supposed to be the opposition party. In short, the members of the club, after a brief skirmish on the campaign trail (costing a total of a billion dollars or so) were back having drinks at the same bar. When, in mid-November, the Presidential library of Bill Clinton opened, former Presidents, Democratic and Republican, along with the current President, sat side by side and declared their fervent desire for unity.

But someone was left out of the celebration, this insistence that we were all one happy family, accepting the President for another four years. The American people were not quite in agreement.

Consider this: Bush won 51 percent of a voting population that was just 60 percent of the eligible voters. That means Bush won the approval of 31 percent of the eligible voters. Kerry won 28 percent of the eligible voters.

The 40 percent who did not cast a ballot seemed to be saying there was no candidate they could approve of. I suspect that a large percentage of those who voted had the same feeling, but voted anyway. Is this a decisive victory? Has the will of the people been followed? (If we were truly democratic, then maybe the 40 percent nonvoters who were the plurality might have their wish: No President at all.)

The President may insist he has "a mandate," but it is up to the rest of us to declare firmly that he doesn't. Sure, he had more votes than his Democratic opponent, but to most of the electorate, that candidate did not represent a real choice. More than half the public, in opinion...