Saturday, August 25, 2012

Hell--- what if the Republicans win?

What a scary thought---as more Republicans drag themselves from under some Mediaeval rock to espouse policies that would put social justice causes back a century or two. The attacks on women, gays and health schemes that could help a significant number of poor Americans are a repugnant development in the politics of this proud nation.
What is equally frightening is the fact that such a small number of citizens will even bother to turn out on Election Day. Would I be correct in proposing that a large portion of the American public don’t give a stuff about the state of their national political scene and that generally, unless they feel directly threatened by a particular policy, they simply get on with their daily lives and leave the important process of choosing candidates at all levels of Federal and State legislatures to a significantly small group of voters because the ‘turnout’ is pathetically low? Compare the turnout figures against other Western democracies and I am sure you would all get the point.
Now let’s look at some of the policies that the ‘candidates, presidentially and at local level. We have ‘bible-bashing,’ ignorant and anti-women candidates. It would be fair to say that the huge majority of these candidates come from the Republican side of the political spectrum. I know that we can’t judge the Republican Party alone for the views of that deluded Todd Akin, but the fact that he even progressed as far as he did; before the Republican leaders took fright at his views and did their best to thwart his plans says much about the party.
The social conservatism that is re-emerging is scary enough. Add in the gaffs from Romney, then ‘thinking’ Americans must be wondering at how far the move to the right has advanced. Hell, all we need now is a ‘McCarthy’ and the picture would be complete.
I just pinched myself---trying to make myself believe that there is a counter-movement within American society and that it is fighting the narrow views of the above mentioned candidates. Perhaps they can create a momentum that will stop the march of the ‘crazies’ and keep Obama in power, despite many of his disappointing back-downs or watering down of action on issues that we thought he had used to win the last Presidential election.
There is no one else. The USA does not have strong credible alternate candidates, so the choice comes down to Obama or a Reaganite, gaff-inflicted ‘darling of big business’ conservative Romney.
The Democrats need an equivalent of the ‘Tea Party’ that invigorated the Republican cause at the last election, but somehow, I don’t think Democrats could get over the ‘cringe factor,’ associated with that movement to enable them to go down that road. Instead they fight at local level, try to make sure they get their voters out, enrol their voters and ‘talk.’ We will need to see a great deal more action and not rely on talk if Romney’s Republicans are to be kept out of power.

No comments:

Post a Comment