A rumination on ruination (and Romneynation)

It is looking slightly less likely this week that Mitt Romney will be elected President than it did two weeks ago. Not less likely enough for any sense of comfort yet, but the polls are turning slowly toward President Obama as Romney continues to demonstrate what a lousy Presidential candidate he is.  Many of us liberals hoped and expected this would be the case, but I don't think we expected him to be this bad.  The debates will still be critical, but I doubt that they will change anything greatly unless there is a major revelation  or huge faux pas, like Obama showing what he really thinks of Romney by kicking him in the groin or something.

Despite this slightly optimistic prospect, I still ponder a forlorn future if somehow Mitt does win.  He would be a rubber stamp President, because he'd have no chance of re-election if he did something against the highly conservative thinkings of the Tea Party, personified by his running mate, Paul Ryan.  Because this group thinks so little of government and what it does, they would gut what it does well.  Recent projections show what the fiscal cliff would do to science budgets, and it is science that drives our health advances and the basic technological underpinnings that advance our increasingly technological society.  The Tea Party doesn't see that at all, they just lump "guvmint spindin" into one big pot.   And because they wave the U.S. flag so much, they think that any thing defense-related is sacrosanct (even  jets the DoD doesn't want).  And while they cut funding, they also pay lip service to the social conventions of their conservative brethren, and if in power would let them control society to an even greater level.

We are a highly divided country, that much is obvious.  It is the only reason that the Presidential race remains as close as it does. My greatest concern now is that if Obama is re-elected, the chagrined GOP will let the country go over the  fiscal cliff that they created, because all the bad stuff might be blamed on Obama, which would increase their chances of getting a GOP Prez four years from now.   In 2008 they vowed the day after the election to do everything in their power to make Obama a one-term  President.  I expect them to plan to do everything in their power to make it more likely that a GOP candidate will be elected in 2016, again starting the day after the  election, and letting the U.S. reach and go over the fiscal cliff would be Step One.

This would almost certainly cause a new recesssion, which they would blame on Obama.  Defense cuts would be blamed on Obama. Bridge collapses due to unfunded infrastructure repairs would be blamed on Obama.  Everything bad that might happen (oh yeah, increased taxes from letting the damned Bush tax cuts expire) would be blamed on Obama.

And so the country would face a bleak prospect at that point, with the GOP non-statesmans presiding over the disaster.  The terror of this possibility makes it seem unthinkable.  But they are so craven, so spiteful, and so devoted to their "cause" that I think it possible they will indeed do everything in their power to let it happen.

So we face ruination either way, Romneynation or not.  If I am surprised in  December, I will thank the lucky stars and the gods that have made it so.  And thus I will pray unceasingly and widely for a change in trajectory.