By Jody K. Biehl

I am sickened. I want the cavalry to come in and take these pretenders away. Or better, I want the extras in this bad film to burn down the stage.

But, this is no B-movie. George W. Bush is back in office and that means for the next four years I cannot go home. For good and for bad, I will remain an ex-patriot in Germany. My reasoning is simple: If there is enough support for someone like Bush to get re-elected, I simply do not belong in America. I don't even fit into my notoriously flip-floppy home state of California, where stem cell research can get affirmed, but the Terminator governs. After four (Bush) years in Germany, my perspective has shifted so much that my home has become foreign to me.

In my adopted new land, gay marriage is legal, the Green Party is a major power player and debates swirl about less, not more, religion in schools. Post-World War II Germany is also famously pacifist -- it provides for the world's developing countries, rather than going to war with them.

Of course, I am not fully content in Germany. For me, this will always be a haunted land where too often secrets get concealed rather than aired and where helping others does not come instinctively. It's a place where people's idiosyncracies and obession with order puzzle and frustrate me. But it's also a country so doggedly opposed to nationalism that it's easier to find more American than German flags waving.

It's a disquieting realization that for now I fit in better here than there. Home used to be the magnetic north from which I plotted my wanderings. Now, the center of my cycles is gone. America is no longer what it was. The champion of the underdog has morphed into the world's bully.

In this election, I can't even blame the antiquated electoral system or claim Bush stole his victory. This time he made history -- getting more votes than any president ever and becoming the only son of an American president ever to win a second term.

The biggest problem I have with America isn't Bush, per se. It's that people no longer seem to care what their leaders tell them -- or how many untruths they are fed. Bush is not being punished for leading the country into a war that was not necessary. No one has been sacked for exaggerating the threat of weapons of mass destruction. A few low-level soldiers have been sent to prison for their atrocious behaviour in Abu Ghraib, but not a single one of Bush's deputies has paid a price for the administration's utter failure to ensure the security and stablity of post-war Iraq.

Americans also seem to have a deliberate ignorance of what their leaders do. Bush has shown utter disrespect for Europe and NATO and has chosen to swagger rather than waltz across a world stage. Domestically, he's managed to transform a budget surplus into a monstrous deficit. More than a thousand young soldiers are now dead because of his poorly planned invasion, and more are being sent to a win a highly un-winnable war.

It seems the only thing Americans want to do these days is to be afraid. They slurp up fear like mother's milk and cling to religion and superstition for shelter. They want to hear that Osama bin Laden is lurking in the bushes ready to pounce, that Iran is the next Iraq and that gay marriage is sinful. The "they" I am talking about are not strangers. Some are my friends and family. I remember sitting in the Los Angeles backyard of one relative in March 2003 and hearing him insist Saddam was a "bad guy" who had to be taken out. "My son is in danger," he told me, pointing to his toddler playing in the grass. "These guys could strike at any time."

Then he showed me his garage, which would easily earn him a blue ribbon from Tom Ridge: In it, he had -- and still maintains -- plastic sheeting and duct tape, enough food and water for a week, three high-powered flashlights and a portable radio. The Bush administration -- and the US media -- fatten such fear like Thanksgiving turkey. Nothing like it exists in Europe, which has also had its share of terrorist bombings and kidnappings.

Wednesday night I watched the Bush team take the stage and my heart stopped. These men -- these fear-mongers who will lead the world for the next four years -- are as banal as doorknobs. And they rule the world like a comic strip. Bush the swaggering Bandito, Laura the timid Librarian who is also a Good Christian wife and Sinister, Archly Secretive Dick. The government they advocate is a fantasyland of the Puritan past, where fear and salvation feed off each other and where church and state blur beyond distinction. We will certainly see more religion in Bush II. After all, it is the Christian fundamentalists and the fight for American "values" that put the Bushes back in office. And now that he doesn't have to worry about re-election, whatever fire and brimstone he held back the last time will come out like a bucking bronco. Does that mean abortion will be overturned? I hope not. The mere fact that it is being discussed is chilling. There is, of course, the off chance Bush could prove to be like Ronald Reagan and be a healer in his second term. I doubt it. Even if he does reach out, the world will be suspicious. His gestures might be soft and loose as hair, but they will be shaped like a weapon. It's unavoidable. Iraq is Bush's mess to clean up. How he will do it remains a mystery.