What does Bush's 2004 election say about America?
That we make mistakes, and elect bad leaders.
I'm not pretending america is unique in this. Some would have us believe that america is fundamentally flawed, in voting for rightwing nut jobs.
Every country has its rightwing nut job constituency. Its only the fact that other developed democracies have parliamentary systems, and near universal voter turnout, that the wingnuts are marginalized.
Lets not pretend the Europeans are light years ahead of us. You could look at any national french election from the last decade, and you will find that 20% of the population votes for hard-rightwing nationalist, fascist, and hard left communist parties. That dude (La Penn?), who is practically a fasicst, came in second place (or something) back in 2004(?). La Penn would make Sam Brownback look like a bleeding heart liberal.
The fact that France has maybe 80% voter turnout, and a parliamentary coaltion system is what keeps these nutjobs in the shadows.
If we ever had 80 to 90% voter turnout, this country would have a permanent progressive majority.