The Election Year

I think it's awesome that American culture generates a billion dollars of commerce every four years, solely to use mass media to inform and educate the public about the merits of political candidates. Wonderful that we care so much about full disclosure and analysis of our prospective leaders that we go to the lengths we do. Seriously, try to get away from the political storm, even for a day, and even this early in the election year, and see if you make it. By the time November rolls around, we're going to know absolutely every gritty detail about the history and politics of the Republican candidate. Isn't our system great?

Ironically - and I think this is a point worth seriously considering - we might at that time know even less about Barack Obama than we think we know now. That seems like it might suggest something important, doesn't it?

Whatever. Political commercial season sucks, since no political candidate yet - despite cumulative millions spent on devising campaign strategies - has figured out how to make a decent political campaign commercial. (Which also seems like it might suggest something, eh?) Nothing like months of 30-second spots, ten times a day, of being told ugly details of someone you're never going to meet, and who your vote doesn't get elected anyway. (Google 'electoral college.') But its IMPORTANT that you listen to them as they talk about 'the issues.' Yay, us!

For what it's worth, and (hopefully) resolving my civic analytical duties regarding who gets elected, and why: Hythloday Today officially extends endorsement to... Mitt Romney.

Honestly, my political views - particularly regarding social services - are aligned substantially further to the right than his. But under the current political climate, there is no way that any of the further-right candidates would defeat Obama in November. I'm not a Gingrich fan to start with, but you only need to poke around a little before you realize the field day that the news media will have with him as an opponent to Obama. All in all, he's a worse candidate than McCain was, because at least you could be confident who McCain was really representing, and predict which way he would jump. Newt, not so much. Romney, in contrast, is going to get grilled on a lot of issues (read: the Mormon thing), but I think he'll hold up better, based on charisma, personal success record, and the ability to project strength and authority. Newt always comes across to me as slightly apologetic, which is not going to work.

And the bottom line is that Romney is the furthest to the left of the candidates from the right, which makes him able to court the largest segment of the vote. Those ads you hear about how Obama is praying that Newt wins the Republican nomination? They got a point. If Newt wins the nomination, Barack will be turning cartwheels in the hallways, because the absolute truth is that Barack will garner a hell of a lot more of that middle-ground split than Newt can possibly hope for.

Newt cannot beat Obama. It really is that simple.

Besides which, the new wave of social conservative theory really is the best reasonable hope for the United States right now. Any political science sophomore can tell you about the progression of the right towards the left over time. At this point, I honestly don't think Barack gives a shit what changes get made to Obamacare. He managed to move our system SUBSTANTIALLY to the left. As a political scientist, he also knows that it's almost impossible for the right to get that ground back. Things will be massaged, policies and programs might be axed, but some of it is going to persist forever. The United States has passed national healthcare. He gets to claim that legacy. That's been the steady-left shift that's been going on since 1776.

We don't have a lot of history to use as an analytic sample for the shift from republicanism to democracy (and I'm talking now about the literal political systems, not about the American parties, although I suppose it applies to them as well). But we got thousands of years about the broader shift towards liberalism, including the concurrent grown of socialist policies. Despotisms, to organized monarchies, to republics, and the first rumblings of true democracy; got libraries filled with that shit. And just looking at generalities, looks like a big part of the survival of nations comes from how those in control (typically the right; being in control is why they're conservative) manage that trend toward to left. Historically speaking, either the system changes to allow liberization to happen slowly and progressively (as has happened in the United States for over 200 years), or else you get sudden increasinly violent fits, fires, and riots when the pressure builds, and it happens suddenly. Personally, I think the best thing for us to do is to keep the progression going as smoothly as possible.

Along those lines, and for mostly economic reasons, the best thing for the United States right now is a centrist President. Somebody who can at least get everyone at the table to address the issues, and agree that EVERYBODY is going to need to give ALOT before acceptable solutions are reached. Get everyone on the same page, so even if the system does absolutely suck, and even if everybody knows you're completely full of shit, at least people know what the system is and what it's going to be. Get rid of the political uncertainty and start agreeing on what we both know the end result is going to be, so commerce can start happening with confidence again.

We're already totally fucked on the budget thing. Really: raise your hand if you ever honestly and realistically believed that the United States will EVER pass a balanced budget. Have you looked around lately? Are we really that far removed from 'Idiocracy' these days? We're not going to tighten our belts now, preemptively. We're going to put it if off until sometime later when we might finally be left with no other choice, no one else to blame, and no one else to rob. The best we can really hope for right now is to stop using up all the other choices, scapegoats, and victims so quickly. Let's keep ourselves a little time to find new choices, scapegoats, and other victims, like we always have in the past.

The United States government will continue to run in the red. But that's life. Lets acknowledge that our politics are going to run at a loss, and do what we can to get our ECONOMY strong enough for the excesses of our government be manageable. If we get politics stable, and get commerce running smoothly, it will be able to keep the flow going. Some bubbles will burst here and there (same as always), but hopefully not so seriously nor so frequently as to crash the system, and we will all keep whistling along until the (already worthless) dollar can be phased out for something else. All we need is to find that something else; something that we can bring ourselves to believe is more valuable. Which is actually a pretty tall order.

In the meantime, lets keep the system under control, limit the wars and the riots to something that can be contained, and we'll all just keep on keeping on, at least (hopefully) for the duration of my lifetime. By then, I'll have prepared my children to prosper in the course of their lifetimes, just like my parents taught me what I needed to proper in this one.

Mitt seems like the right guy to keep things under control for the next four years, while we all do the best we can and wait to see what happens next.