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Romney vs. Obama: Pros and Cons
If Obama were to win a second term —which is very possible, in my humble opinion, not based on anything but hunches— it is going to be difficult for everybody. If the Republicans retain a majority in the House, and the Democrats a slim majority in the Senate, no progressive legislation will be passed. The Republicans will put the brakes on any useful Presidential appointees, be it judges or heads of federal divisions of government.
This is partly the fault of the Democrat base. It has been ineffective in the extreme at supporting the legislation that was passed, and in arguing why the various provisions in it are good for workers and the Middle Class in the long run. This is especially true of Health Care legislation.
The President can use the veto, and try to persuade the people that various courses of action should be taken, but the conservative spin doctors can always twist things around to make it appear that the so-called Liberal Agenda is the source of all ills of the past several decades. (This is not an entirely vacuous accusation, because I suspect that Democrats as well as Republicans must be blamed for Wall Street Deregulation and the Real Estate crisis, which caused the economic depression of 2009. At least a few of the banks and investment houses that were to blame supported the Democratic Party.)
If, on the other hand, the Democrats win a large majority in one or both houses, if progressive legislation is passed, there will be an enormous hue and cry, followed by massive defeats in the next election (2014), and immediate repeals of the progressive legislation. I predict that President Obama will actually slow down any progressive legislation, to ensure that there is as much bipartisan support from the people, not merely from the representatives. But, as we have seen, the minority conservatives are adept at mobilizing to sway public opinion against the interests of the majority. Someone has said that as soon as people realize that they have the power to vote massive benefits for themselves, Democracy is doomed. But, honestly, are liberals trying to vote massive benefits for themselves? Are Republicans sincere in their accusation that this is what is going on? Most of them actually are. There are bumper stickers that read: “Work harder; there are unemployed people who need your money.” The idea is that Democrats, and liberals generally, are eager to take away the incentive to obtain employment. Why work, if you can get indefinite unemployment benefits?
Certainly, it makes sense for the rules to be tightened up, so that the destitute continue to receive unemployment benefits, while those who are not destitute do not. The idea is to provide a safety-net for the lowest rung of the economic ladder, and not necessarily to keep the middle-class in hard times in the style to which it is accustomed. But a quick look at the style to which the Investor Class is accustomed quickly suggests that these quibbles are academic. (By Investor Class I mean those whose principal income is through investments.) But they [the quibbles] are not academic. We cannot expect the people as a whole to sign on to the idea of a social safety-net if it is perceived to be abused by anyone. Both ends of the argument must be addressed: even members of the Investor Class must be taxed at the same rate as the rest of us: up to 30%, rather than the mere 15% at which they are taxed presently, and we must take seriously the drain on public funds represented by abuses of the welfare system.
But I digress. The point is that poverty cannot simply be legislated away. We can all get behind federal programs of the sort that benefit the most disadvantaged members of our society. We can all get behind federal programs that benefit everyone equally, if the government can accomplish those things more efficiently, even given the government’s —only partly deserved, I might add— reputation for being completely and totally inept at providing services of any sort. But the popular mood is against unrestrained growth of government, and has been since 1980. We certainly must guard against indiscriminate hacking away at programs that have been proven to be useful. But nobody wants unrestrained growth of government.
If Mitt Romney is to become President, it is difficult to see what will happen. I believe he will be hard put to satisfy everything that every Republican, Tea Partyer and Libertarian demands. We can anticipate that his first priority will be to push for changes in the laws that would benefit the businesses and corporations that funded his campaign, namely repeal some taxes and lower others; remove regulations that make it harder for businesses to hire and fire whom they want, e.g. equal opportunity laws. Remove funding from public schools in favor of private schools; drain money away from public housing projects, and do away with HUD, which is reputed to be a hotbed of corruption in the first place. More insidious possibilities are that the arms industry will be encouraged to gear up, and that foreign policy will become more conducive to interventionism. I personally don’t believe that Romney supports the Neo-Conservatives as much as the Bushes did, but Republican presidents, generally, have been sensitive to accusations of being soft on foreign policy.
Honestly, it is difficult to know what Romney will do; it is amusing to realize that the Republicans don’t know, either. If you think you’re puzzled by being unable to anticipate how Obama would act, it’s nothing like how impossible it is to predict Romney. This is not because he is a highly intelligent, cautious man, as President Obama is. It is because Romney is attentive to his advisers, who are all over the place, ideologically. Still, I don’t believe that major decisions that affect the larger population adversely are likely to be taken immediately; that would turn the rank-and-file Tea Partyers against him immediately. On the other hand, taxes might be cut all up and down the spectrum, a sop to the poorer sectors of the population, which would deplete the coffers of the government, and of course Obama would be blamed for handing over a terrible economy and an enormous deficit.
The Iraq War was fought in part by mercenaries: the private security forces that were responsible for some of the more violent violations of the codes of war. One can only imagine the practices that could emerge in future wars in which a Republican president might lead the country. But perhaps I worry about these things unfairly; wartime misconduct is probably equally shared between presidents of both major parties. Not all these things come to light.
How to fight the next election
The Media (which benefits most from an election year) is eager to present the election of 2012 as being fought by massive fundraising, and the election committees of the two main candidates are powerless to combat this representation. Let’s not worry about what the Republicans are up against; the situation is mostly (but not entirely) their own fault. But as far as the Democrats and Obama are concerned, it simply means that the Republicans (and the enormous PACs that support them) are going to air horribly vicious advertisements vilifying all things Democrat and all things Liberal, especially President Obama.
I personally feel that it is mostly a waste of time to fight on-air viciousness with more viciousness. Certainly there must be sufficiently many on-air Democrat advertisements that calmly and seriously combat these ads without following them into offensive territory. This is important for the sake of those viewers and listeners who are isolated from the Democrat network, and who are easily put into a state of consternation if the accusations go unanswered. But it seems to me that the Democrats, and liberals of all sorts, must go on the assumption that a liberal (or moderate) majority exists, and simply needs to refuse to be intimidated, and needs to go to the polls in November. If the national Democrats organize a huge media blitz for the days leading up to the election, that’s their business, I suppose. But I think it is crazy to try to raise more money than the Republicans claim to have raised; this works wonderfully to intimidate the opposition, but is more conducive to providing Media with extra revenue far more than it is conducive to winning the election.
The time to worry about new laws about getting registered and providing acceptable identification is now, and not at poll time! We must be ready far in advance of the need, and must not resort to whining about stringent identification procedures, since, after all, we must win the election with real voters, rather than fictitious ones. Rather than aggressive phone calling programs, our time is better spent assisting poor Democrats (and even poor Republicans) and those without family resources to obtain legitimate and acceptable Identification.
Most importantly, a president must be elected whom the majority wants. If Obama is elected by the fact that a minority persuaded everyone else to unwillingly grant him a second term, both Obama and the Democrats who worked for his election will be responsible if his hard work is subverted by the Republicans over the next four years. Remember that conservatives have been far more effective in the recent past at portraying any gains made by the Obama administration in a horribly negative light than the Democrats have been able to show these gains as gains, in the first place. Either we’re completely inept at persuading anyone, or everyone other than ourselves are idiots, and incapable of listening to logic. This is not going to change in a hurry.
Congress
The same is true for members of congress. The last thing we need is to elect a bunch of moderates who can barely subscribe to the Democrat platform. The first thing that will happen at the slightest hint of progressive legislation is that they will turn tail and run, leaving the House (and state houses) in turmoil. Despite the fact that ideologically the Democrat Party seems to have spread wide, attracting many moderate Republicans, it has managed to remain largely unified. Within the Democrat ranks there is nothing like the dissension there is within the “uneasy coalition” that Buckley forged for the GOP in the Eighties, of Right-To-Lifers, the Gun Lobby, and the Christian Right (and of course, let’s not forget, the neo-Nazis). Still, it seems prudent to put forward for election only Democrats who have the stomach to stand behind a progressive platform.
There is something to be said for intelligent amateurs as representatives. Political insiders are a frightening bunch, too comfortable with polls, lobbies, wheeling and dealing, and disinformation. Some of the people I trust the least are those who were Political Science majors in college. What is their angle? I could rarely tell.
So keep the faith, and refuse to be intimidated by lots of dollars. This is an election that I feel certain the less affluent can win, if they just don’t chicken out.
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