Never mind the corporate media inspired fake horse race. Let get down to the obvious -- what happens Wednesday?
If Obama wins....
As a sane human being/socialist/liberal, this is the result I'm hoping for. Not because I'm this massive partisan flag waiver for the democratic party -- which I'm not.
I just don't want to risk America turning into a third world country overnight by handing the reins to the poster boy of all that is wrong with America's plutocracy.
Short-term: there will be hell on earth in conservative-ville. Roger Ailes and his minions will have diarrhea of the mouth for a good month or two hatching every conceivable conspiracy plot over how the evil Obama stole the election. They have been hyping this false narrative that Romney is winning on polls for months now and lashing out at anything that runs counter to that fake narrative. So much so that it's impossible that there WON'T be a shitstorm on Wednesday.
Medium term: there's the fiscal cliff. I do think there's going to be a grand bargain of some kind. What form it takes is anybody's guess. But if he can hold Boehner and McConnell to the fire, we could see some significant changes to the tax code. Not to mention that the GOP is going to have to break ranks with King Grover. It's going to have to happen sooner or later -- you cannot be serious about cutting the deficit without raising some taxes. And let's be realistic here: nobody has done better in the last 4 years than the plutocrats. They're making more money now than they were before recession.... If it was up to me, I'd let the tax cuts on the $200k a year crowd expire and slash a number of loop holes for the top end. Especially corporate loopholes. Companies like Apple, GE, and so on are basically robbing the country blind by not paying their share. In more far-out there land, I'd also like to see tax breaks for companies that invest in building manufacturing jobs in the states and penalize companies that use Caribbean tax shelters to dodge their taxes. This "I have mine fuck you" life style of our owner class needs to get anally violated with a baseball bat. Two baseball bats if you claim to be a Christian because clearly they didn't read the Bible. Jesus was sympathetic to the poor and hated moneylenders. I think he was serious when he said "it's easier to thread rope into the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven".
Long term: 2012-2014 will see a lot of grouching from the Republicans in congress, but they are going to have to work with the president. I say this for a couple reasons. The first is they know they're not going to get away with the obstructionist BS for much longer. If they act the way they did in 2011 in 2013, the 2014 midterms will be a bloodbath. Possibly a self-sustained bloodbath. I can very much see the GOP coalition breaking up or at least fracturing. It'll be very interesting to see how the plutocrats react when all the millions they spent on attack ads is a huge failure. I could see a schism forming where you have plutocrats & libertarians and the social issue teabaggers on the other. I expect that 2014 will see either the dems take back the house or there will be a libertarian/moderate republican rebellion. Crazy is going out style. The country simply will not except any more craziness because it kills the biggest fib in 21st politics -- that both parties are the same. When the question becomes "Sane" vs. "Insane", you know we have a problem.
Far as legislation goes.... who knows? There will definitely be a 2nd round of stimulus. AKA the president's job bill. Maybe we'll even get another shot at the Veteran bill that the GOP in the senate shot down.... That was just embarrassing. I'd like to see more action on the green energy front. If the momentum gained from Bloomberg and Cuomo coming out and saying "it's climate change, you idiots", this could happen. Nuclear will need to part of the mix. I'd really like to see a serious attempt at getting a molten salt reactor or LFTR started up. Yes, it will be a huge expensive project... But if it works, we can start leading on the climate change issue. This sorry horseshit over India and China needs to end -- they won't change until we do first. And if we can sell them parts for their thorium reactors, all the better! Then there's weed. If it gets decriminalized on the west coast, that's going to be a big deal. Provided the DOJ doesn't crack down on it, I could see having it decriminalized on a federal level.... maybe. There will be a lot of right wing backlash, but it needs to happen. If gay marriage passes in more states (including MD), I think there might be some hope for it at the federal level. It's going to happen in my lifetime. Eventually most of the other G8 countries will have gay equality laws and we will look like social neanderthals for not being ahead of the trend.
Longer-Longer term: 2016.... I have no idea who the democrats will run with. It'll be almost as open a field as 2008. Hillary won't run. Biden is at best iffy -- he'll be in his 70s. There's a whole line of potential contenders including among others Deval Patrick (MA governor, Martin O'Malley (MD governor), and Cory Booker (NJ mayor). The idea of Booker vs. Christie makes me giggle. Biden vs. Christie will require me to empty my bladder before the debates.
If Romney wins.....
First off, there will be riots in Ohio because the only feasible way that Romney wins is that there is some serious high level electoral fraud in Ohio. And if not in Ohio, there'll be plenty all over the map. This seems to be the story I'm going to remember the most about this election -- more so than Clint vs Invisible Obama or Obama's debate zingers -- that if the GOP can't win fair & square then fuck it we'll just fraud our way in. They say elephants never forget, but the donkey is getting a lot more paranoid. We remember what happened in Florida in 2000 and we're not going to let it happen again.
Short-term: the financial cliff is going to be huge. And zombie Jesus save us all because only he knows which Mitt Romney will show up at the inauguration. Our best bet is to hope Reid plays the obstructionist in those talks. But I think at the end of the day, there's no way going forward that they'll be able to get out of preventing the sequester on the military and keep Bush's tax cuts. Who knows. Romney might even be brazen to let all of the tax cuts die. I wish Obama was that ballsy, but I don't think it'll happen. Romney will immediately become unpopular with his base for whatever comes out of the financial cliff no matter what. This will also play into the 2014 midterms. That's the good version. The bad version is that we get plutocrat Romney who taxes the poor to give to the rich. If we get that version, expect the economy to roll back into recession. Think will get very bleak if that happens and ensures huge losses in 2014 for the GOP in congress.
Long-term: There will still be a schism between the plutocrats & libertarians and the social issue evangelicals. And it will cost the GOP the house. With democrats controlling both sides of congress, we will see a repeat of Romney's term in Massachusetts. Romney will waive that veto like it was going out of style, but the democrats will ram shit through congress with veto-proof majorities thanks to some GOP 'traitors' that want to keep their seat. Stuff will actually get done. The economy will improve and Romney will claim he did it, but we'll know better. That's one of my greater concerns -- that the GOP will try to say they were the ones that turned the economy around. We'll know the truth and call him out on. Hell. Maybe even the corporate media will call him out. They hate incumbents as their coverage of the president shows.
Oh. And Obamacare getting repealed? Will never happen. The healthcare industry itself will lobby for it once it's fully implemented. Dodd-Frank is in much greater danger. But if Romney tries to roll back financial regulations, it will drag down his chances for re-election dramatically.
Attacking Iran will never happen. There will be some thumping for it from the neocons, but reality will butt in. Syria is going to be a much bigger danger than Iran. Hopefully Romney would have the sense to keep their nose out of it, but it's hard to say. I think Syria is going to escalate if Turkey and Lebanon get any more involved than they already are. This will keep Iran from doing anything crazy because they have a horse in the race also. Also remember Ahbadinajad's term will be over in 2013 so we'll be seeing a new Iranian president. Not that it'll matter -- the president is just there to distract people from the Ayatollahs in charge of Iran.
Longer-term: Romney will be a one-term president and the country will elect its second black president by landslide: Deval Patrick. Romney will not be remembered as the second coming of Reagan -- more like the 21st century Nixon. He might even follow Nixon's path of shame if it comes out that those voting machines that Tagg owns turned out to give him the election.
The other elephant in the room
I'm referring to Citizen's United. Notice I haven't mentioned that at all. I see this election as deciding its future. If Obama wins, we have two likely scenarios: either CU will be deemed to be worthless (because the big money candidate still lost) or the amendment process will start up. If Rmoney -- er Romney -- wins, there will be serious public outcry for amending it.
And speaking of way-out wishlist stuff....
How about a federal non-partisan voting committee that would control this mess. It's apparent after 12 years of questionable elections that something needs to be done about the election process at a federal level. Yes yes I know the GOP will whine about state rights, but you know what? Fuck 'em. If Florida and Ohio and the other swing states can't fix their shit than Uncle Sam is going to have to get involved. This silly narrative of how states can do it better and more efficiently falls flat especially here.
And seriously can we please please please getting a shorter primary cycle? We don't need six months of that crap. Bad enough the general election lasts 4 months. We can save everybody some money by making the entire process last 6 months tops.
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