Barring some kind of repeat of 2000, --the hurricane's effects* on the East coast might provide grounds for legal challenges--we should know by this time next week who will be in the White House for the next four years. At this point, it seems too close to call.
As always, Ex Cathedra will cast his lot --effectively useless in overwhelmingly Democrat California-- for the lesser of the two evils.
Jonah Goldberg once wrote that a hallmark of conservatism, in contrast to a central tenet of liberalism, is a refusal to consider politics as "salvific", a word I thought only theologians used. "Salvific: having the intention or power to bring about salvation or redemption." As with so many things in the post-lapsarian world, a political program may not have the power to save, but it sure as hell can have the power to destroy.
If Romney wins, it will slow some of the symptoms of the decline. Obamacare will be shelved. For now. And we may get some adjustment in our fiscal and economic woes. But, like Bush, Romney will be unmercifully and constantly savaged by the press, the media and entertainment, the academy, etc. And he will not have the benefit of race to cry about. I doubt that "anti-Mormon hate" will have much traction as an excuse with folks like Chris Matthews.
And if demographics continue, the Republicans, the White party, will eventually be doomed to perpetual outsider status. The only way that could change --and it is inconceivable-- would be if a substantial majority of Whites realized that the Democrat party is the engine of their destruction.
(Not to absolve at all the major contributions of the feckless and pathetic Republicans.)
If Obama remains, then the decline will only accelerate.
And even if the country is split, and Obama succeeds in convincing only a bit more than half, it is a very bad sign that such a man could get that much of the American electorate to vote for him, given his performance and our condition. He is as much a symptom as a disease.
*My immediately family have all stayed safe and their property not seriously damaged. But one of my evacuated cousins returned to find 2 feet of water in their living room...that will be a very costly matter.
--
As always, Ex Cathedra will cast his lot --effectively useless in overwhelmingly Democrat California-- for the lesser of the two evils.
Jonah Goldberg once wrote that a hallmark of conservatism, in contrast to a central tenet of liberalism, is a refusal to consider politics as "salvific", a word I thought only theologians used. "Salvific: having the intention or power to bring about salvation or redemption." As with so many things in the post-lapsarian world, a political program may not have the power to save, but it sure as hell can have the power to destroy.
If Romney wins, it will slow some of the symptoms of the decline. Obamacare will be shelved. For now. And we may get some adjustment in our fiscal and economic woes. But, like Bush, Romney will be unmercifully and constantly savaged by the press, the media and entertainment, the academy, etc. And he will not have the benefit of race to cry about. I doubt that "anti-Mormon hate" will have much traction as an excuse with folks like Chris Matthews.
And if demographics continue, the Republicans, the White party, will eventually be doomed to perpetual outsider status. The only way that could change --and it is inconceivable-- would be if a substantial majority of Whites realized that the Democrat party is the engine of their destruction.
(Not to absolve at all the major contributions of the feckless and pathetic Republicans.)
If Obama remains, then the decline will only accelerate.
And even if the country is split, and Obama succeeds in convincing only a bit more than half, it is a very bad sign that such a man could get that much of the American electorate to vote for him, given his performance and our condition. He is as much a symptom as a disease.
*My immediately family have all stayed safe and their property not seriously damaged. But one of my evacuated cousins returned to find 2 feet of water in their living room...that will be a very costly matter.
--
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