Friday, June 29, 2012

No, It's Not the Most Important Election Ever

One thing that gets my goat is hearing or reading that "this is the most important election in our lifetime." It seems that Republicans have declared every election since 1994 thus. Liberals are even getting into the act.

Every election is kinda important. Bush versus Gore in 2000 was the difference between a decade of continued prosperity and peace and the alternative of depression and an endless series of feckless wars. But we can only realize that in hindsight.
[2012] may be the most important election since the Civil War, and possibly since America's founding. ~ Newt Gingrich
Presidents come and they go. Horrible ones like George Bush can only do so much damage in there short terms. Great ones can only do so much good. No election (okay, maybe 1932) was so important that the very future of democracy was at stake.

That doesn't mean I wouldn't be seriously bummed if Romney's plutocrats gain power and that four to eight years of the ensuing corruption wouldn't be a very bad thing. It's just that the nation would survive. The country survived Richard Nixon's proto-fascism, Harding's open racketeering, Wilson's total medical incapacitation, and Reagan's Alzheimer's.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I will say I weary of the apocolyptic talk with every piece of legislation. On the other hand, I do not have quite the same confidence in the resiliency of our government as you do. The only thing that comforts me is that, in reading various stages of US history, I find the things happening now are not much different, other than froma technology standpoint, than things that have happened throughout the country's history. The sad part about that is that people don't realize that, for most of our history, we have been a pretty ethically bankrupt country. It is certainly not hard to see that a Ronney era will not become a model of good ethics, given the nonsense he has repeatedly spouted, around talked out versions of "America the Beautiful".

Becoming an expatriate may beome quite attractive.

Unknown said...

Cable news would have you believe that EVERY day, there's at least one story that could spell THE END OF AMERICA!

One day, they'll be right.

Unless they're talking about something else that day.