America is in for four more years of conservative governance as a result of the Republican election sweep.

The world now knows that President George W. Bush has political support for his brand of hard-edged conservativism at home and his tough, unilateral foreign policy abroad.

Bush's lack of credibility in staging the Iraqi invasion and his willingness to alienate longtime allies apparently meant nothing to a majority of American voters.

The president views the outcome of the election as vindication of his policies. Now he can really get down to business.

With the same political party in control of the White House, the House, the Senate and the Supreme Court, there will be no way to block Bush's preemptive militancy. Who is going to stop him?

At a news conference Thursday, he put the nation on notice that he will do it his way.

"I earned capital in the campaign -- political capital -- and now I intend to spend it," he said.

Of course, the president made his pro forma call for national unity. He was, after all, a uniter, not a divider in the 2000 presidential campaign -- remember? After he won the first time, Bush spent the next four years making the country deeply polarized.

Bush reiterated his pledge to reach out to the opposition "who shares our goals." With the campaign over, he said, "Americans are expecting bipartisan effort and results."

Ah, but the rub is that everyone does not share his goals, or some 55 million more Americans would have voted for him.

Whatever happened to that humble foreign policy he promised us four years ago? Bush has been outspoken about his feeling that he is doing the Almighty's work in bringing freedom to the Middle East, even at heavy human costs.

If the past is prologue, we know now that diplomacy, compromise and reconciliation are not big in his toolbox.

Since the word "peace" rarely crosses the president's lips, Americans will remain in the hands of an administration ready to go it alone, burnishing Bush's famous attitude: "You are with us or against us."

The president believes the 9/11 terrorist attacks freed the United States from the international rules of behavior.

By invading Iraq without provocation, Bush thumbed his nose at the U.N. Charter and international treaties. There is no reason to believe he will now run a more open White House or suddenly overcome his anathema to news conferences, despite his euphoric post-election quiz session with reporters, where he described his second-term agenda.

Before Thursday, his last news conference was on June 10.

With Congress in Republican hands, Bush will likely continue to push big tax cuts to the nation's richest people, probably under the camouflage of the "tax simplification" plan that he announced as one of his goals.

He also will push privatization of Social Security under the guise of "reform" to permit individuals to divert some of their payroll taxes into private investment accounts. The move will undermine the time-honored, well-run pension program, which also serves dependent children and the disabled.

You can count on a further easing of environmental regulations and a chipping away of workers rights and at health and safety standards in the workplace.

It's easy to predict deeper inroads in the constitutional precept of separation of church and state.

During the campaign, he played up his religious fervor and so-called traditional values (translate that as "no gay marriage").

Not the least worry for liberals is the matter of the Supreme Court, already stacked with conservative appointees.

With Chief Justice William Rehnquist ailing and other vacancies expected in Bush's new term of office, he will be free to make several appointments to the high bench.

Although he was cagey on the campaign trail about whether he had an anti-abortion litmus test for his potential justices, Bush is expected to select judges who fit into a conservative mold.

Since the president sees his victory as a mandate for his "might-is-right" foreign policy and conservative domestic views, the United States will be even more isolated from the world and even more divided at home.

(Helen Thomas can be reached at the e-mail address hthomas@hearstdc.com).

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