We've all seen the bumper stickers, signs and t-shirts that declare, "Bush: Not my president."
Today, walking down a dingy hallway in the linguistics building, I passed a grungy, black-clad undergraduate whose t-shirt declared that rather silly phrase.
It was all I could do to keep myself from tapping him on the arm and saying, "Oh, he's not your president either? I'm from Europe, where are you from?"
That statement, "Not my President," is simply indicative of the divorce such people have from reality. When a country has a President, that person is PRESIDENT. A President is not created or legitimized by the heart-commitment of the people, but by the votes of a majority. When one says, "He is not my President", one either means that one is from another country (as I am), or that one is being totally ridiculous, basing a presidency on emotional loyalty.
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