This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2004, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Wednesday morning Americans everywhere woke up in Utah. Only 51 percent were happy about it.

We're accustomed here to living in President Bush's 1950s-ish world. Many Utahns have never lived anywhere else (missions don't count), avoiding entirely the second half of the 20th Century, culturally speaking. A lot happened, let me tell you. But I digress.

Still, Democrats here and elsewhere had hope. There was a sense on Nov. 1 that getting to 1960 was within our grasp. JFK was on the ballot, and it looked like Camelot might return after all. Only this time, the Republican won.

Awakening Wednesday to the only kind of world Utah Democrats have known for at least a generation, Blue America was just that, hiding the sharp objects and dusting off the passports.

In his victory speech that afternoon, President Bush promised to be inclusive, at the same time, paradoxically, claiming a mandate. But at a press conference the following day he came up with a new Bushism that employed a caveat you could drive a truck through. He said he would "reach out to everyone who shares our goals." What?

No one was fooled by this political feint, designed to set up the Democrats for accusations of obstruction when they raise objections to his agenda. Triumphant majorities don't usually act in a conciliatory way.

Bush's history suggests he won't be any different. After the 2000 election Bush had no mandate at all, but that didn't stop Dick Cheney from laying out the incoming administration's radical agenda to five moderate Republican senators.

"I literally was close to falling off my chair," said Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island. "[There] was no room for discussion."

Rather than spend his political capital on compromises that could heal the divisions in this country, Bush would rather pursue an agenda for the evangelicals with whom the Bush campaign's hype of "moral values" -- code, of course, for abortion and gay marriage -- resonated.

But it goes beyond that. This administration blurs the lines between church and state to marginalize the secular entirely, helping its conservative Christian supporters maintain the illusion of living in a bubble unruffled by challenges to their faith. It's not unlike Utah.

The problem is that more than 55 million people who voted against Bush also have to live in that bubble, and it's gotten mighty contentious in there as we elbow each other for room. America has become an incubator of fear easily exploited by a cultural demagogue like Karl Rove, whose get-out-the-vote canvassers looked like a Rapture block party.

If Bush's opponents want to declaw the right, they will need to get better at explaining not just why it's immoral to give tax breaks to millionaires when 45 million people don't have health insurance. They need to wonk less policy and explain how their vision of a just and peaceful world is consonant with the values of self-proclaimed people of faith.

"The Republicans have been successful in framing themselves as the defender of American traditions, religious traditions, family traditions," said rising Democratic star Barack Obama, the newly minted senator from Illinois. "I think the Democrats have to make sure that we don't cede the field."

Meanwhile, Bush's supporters have to be careful what lessons they draw from this election. It's true that Bush got more votes than any president in history. It's also true that, with the exception of 1992, more votes than ever were cast against the winner this year. This was a tight victory, where a switch of 70,000 votes in Ohio would have reversed the result.

Former North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms was the master of divide and conquer. His average voter support over four elections was 51.7 percent, which didn't give him a mandate to be a bigot.

The problem with the way Bush sees his spurious mandate is that he doesn't really give a damn about how the other 48 percent lives -- or votes.

Here in Utah, Democrats give a damn. They know from hard experience that being politically marginalized is difficult, but they have mostly learned to live with it and not be utterly ruled by frustration, anxiety and anger. They have learned to be in Utah, but not of it.

John Kerry's 48 percent will have to find a similar way to live in Red America, while once more summoning the will to work toward a changing of the colors in 2008.

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John Yewell is a regular contributor to the Opinion section.