Diving Into the Gutter

by Steve

"No one's ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised."
--Mitt Romney, just now, in Commerce, Michigan.

Please spare me any further denials that Mitt Romney isn't waging a race-based campaign aimed at the worst elements of his party's base. To be on the verge of his party's convention and to trot out such a despicable line of extremism means that Romney is either desperate, or fully in bed with the birthers, or both. In any event, it points out a major problem facing this country: there are millions of moderate or independent voters who think that despite everything Romney has said during the primaries, he is really a closet moderate at heart who would never behave in office like he’s talked during the campaign. And that’s a major gamble this country could be making come November.

If Romney doesn’t believe these things, then he is a bald-faced liar willing to say and do anything to get into office. And if Romney does believe these things, then the electorate could vote the black man out of the White House without being adequately informed about the man they are installing into office. These millions of voters who may give Romney a chance once in the polling booth haven’t been paying attention like some of us have to what the far right and corporate interests have been saying about Romney’s true function once in office, which is to sign any bill and do whatever the corporate elite and the fringe tells him to do.

You frequently hear pundits tell us that the American electorate is smarter than politicians give them credit for. To that I say “bullshit”. There is ample evidence that the electorate has made terrible choices against their own interests for decades now, because the electorate is remarkably lazy about its government, and terribly and willingly misinformed. GOP political operatives have known this since at least the 1990’s, if not before. I’m not indicting just the masses in my critique here; in my own social circle, some the most politically misinformed and stupid people I know are lawyers, executives in various industries, and higher educated people who spew the worst nonsense you can imagine about Obama and what he’s allegedly done. Sure, it’s the triumph of Rush and Fox over news and facts, but you still have to have willing receptacles of this race-based crap to begin with.

So here we have Romney spewing racist, birther crap on the eve of his own convention, and yet we have millions of voters out there who still think good ole’ Mitt is really a safe choice in the end. God help us all.

Let's see how much all these voters love the 7-2 Supreme Court; the next war with Iran and against women, gays, and immigrants; and the collapse of the middle class and full ascension of corporations and the wealthy. If they install Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, America will deserve what it gets.