Over at The Ave a guest editorial appears from Robert called, “The Worst Case Scenario” (my emphasis):
Assuming Romney & Ryan (these lethal bozo’s should not have even been close) win their attitude of extreme conservative austerity, the sworn oath of the Tea party politicians to never raise taxes on the wealthy and the republican obsession to regain power by sabotaging the black man’s presidency at any cost will result in America’s very own holocaust. The next four years will include a collapse of the American economy, drastically increased unemployment, destroy the social safety net, gut the public schools system, close the US Post Office, deprive millions of healthcare, expand the war on collective bargaining and working people, on women, on the underemployed, on minorities, end fair elections, end affordable higher education, reinforce a corporate dominated supreme court, keep money in politics, start unnecessary wars resulting in millions of casualties, destabilize world peace, put global warming on steroids which could be the beginning of the end of the human species. The Tea party republicans then would give the trillions they skin for social services to the already obscenely rich and a bloated military.
Robert argues his case from these premises.
To me, the essay is a little over the top, and a little on the pessimistic side. But it raises a good question: “What is the worst case scenario for a Romney–Ryan presidency?”
I remember when Shrub more-or-less won in 2000. I imagined that we were in for a depressing four years in which not much got accomplished except the decimation of the responsible fiscal budgetary policy of the Clinton administration.
And then came 9/11.
Rather than impeaching the President for ignoring a memo titled, “Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US”, America reacted by turning over and playing dead.
The nine years that followed were a worst case scenario, from throwing fiscal responsibility totally out the window, starting two wars, including one that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, allowing N. Korea to develop and test a nuclear weapon, providing for unprecedented powers of spying on the American people, creation of the seemingly biblically inspired Department of Homeland Security and the fucking TSA (together a huge expansion of the federal government), sanctioned torture in our name, indefinite detention, vilification of Islam, and the Roberts/Alito court.
And the whole clusterfuck was capped by the collapse and near-ruin of the U.S. economy.
Man…that was some shitty scenario! But not really on the level of a holocaust—except, maybe, what happened in Iran.
Would a Romney–Ryan administration be worse than that? I cannot imagine it so…
But, then again, I could not foresee the profound wounds that the Bush–Cheney administration would end up inflicting on my country.
So what do you think? Am I not pessimistic enough? Is Robert too pessimistic? Seriously, what is the likely and the worst case scenarios from a Romney–Ryan administration?
Just how bad could it get?
The worst that can happen is nothing will be left in America except rabbits. Lots and lots of rabbits! And grass! So what if you humans disappear? That’s not so bad. I could live with it. As long as there’s enough grass to feed trillions of rabbits there’s nothing to worry about.
RealClearPolitics handicaps the races:
White House: Obama 281, Romney 257
Senate: 52 Democrats, 48 Republicans
House: 226 Republicans, 183 Democrats, 26 Tossups
Why Benghazi Has Dropped Out Of Mitt’s Campaign Rhetoric
Have you noticed? Mittster isn’t talking about Libya. At all. Maybe this is why:
“You’d think that this would be obvious, but in the future it’s a good idea to remember that just because someone posts something on Facebook, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true. Even better: Just because someone said someone posted something on Facebook doesn’t mean it’s true. Even if you really, really want it to be.”
http://www.motherjones.com/moj.....ate-emails
A Massachusetts judge granted a request by The Boston Globe to unseal Mitt Romney’s 1991 testimony in a trial involving the value of Staples stock. The transcript of Romney’s testimony could affect the election outcome if it turns out Romney committed perjury.
The immediate launching of a shooting war with Iran, which spreads across the Middle East, drags in Russia and China and disrupts the world’s oil supply. From there, decide how far down the hole you want to go.
@4 and fails to lift the gag order…
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/201.....gag-order/
Romney signs pledges hand over fist, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if he committed perjury.
these lethal bozo’s should not have even been close
It is not up to fate whether or not Gekko/Galt get the opportunity to do to us what Bush/Cheney did to us.
It is up to US!
We the People!
Have you voted yet? Has your choice to move this country FORWARD been signed, sealed, delivered?
Don’t wait!
King County ballot drop boxes –
http://www.kingcounty.gov/elec.....boxes.aspx
Pierce County ballot drop boxes –
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms.....#038;msa=0
Snohomish County ballot drop boxes –
http://www1.co.snohomish.wa.us.....op_Box.htm
Thurston County ballot drop boxes –
http://www.co.thurston.wa.us/a.....pboxes.htm
And after you’ve done your bit, call your friends, your neighbors, your children and help them do their bit.
This isn’t a spectator sport. Elections are the work of citizens.
Anderson Cooper: Mitt Romney’s Campaign Ads ‘Bend The Truth’
If Republican policies were really so good and popular then why has Slick Willard lied so much and so often in making his case?
Slick Willard & China
Have you ever seen a Mitt Romney lookalike bobblehead doll? Or the parody video, since removed from the Internet, with former Republican candidate Jon Huntsman’s three daughters interviewing a nodding Mitt bobblehead?
This year, the Romney bobbleheads are marketed on the Internet, along with Barack Obama bobble-eads that are reportedly selling faster. But the original Mitt bobblehead first appeared four years ago and was produced—by Ann Romney’s brother at a factory in China—as a party favor for big donors.
No matter what Slick Willard says, we know what he’ll do.
What He’ll Do – Obama for America TV Ad
Why is Paul Ryan in states that don’t matter?
It’s pretty simple to answer, isn’t it?
Gekko/Galt is hiding House Republican Intellectual Leader, Paul Ly’n Ryan, because his views and policy prescriptions are so toxic that if “undecideds” heard or saw him in swing states Gekko/Galt’s subterfuge of “Moderate Mitt” would be blown to hell.
Gekko/Galt is the anvil
We are the HAMMER!
Hammer it home
I don’t like the original (linked) author’s use of the word holocost as a description. That should be carefully applied only to the Nazi exterminations, and those like it (like some instances in Africa a while back). In those cases, wiping out a racial/ethnic group from the face of the earth was the avowed goal. Mere reckless disregard of the consequences, or collateral damage, doesn’t meet that definition. To use the word to describe those other situations tends to diminish the crimes of those of the Nazis and those like them.
But other than that, the main post has a point.
When Ronald Reagan was elected, I figured that as long as he didn’t start a nuclear war with the Soviets, we could get by until his term(s) in office were up. The consequences of his fiscal policy took two decades to repair, but it was manageable.
I thought the same thing when George W. Bush took office. Boy, was I wrong there! We discovered just how much damage a President, and a cooperative Congress, could do to this nation in a relatively short period of time. Presidential elections DO matter, after all!
I also agree that if Mitt gets into office, it will be much worse – it will be an incindiary combination of Grover Norquist Republicans determined to drown the government by cutting off it’s air, and the worst of the cultural “Tea Party” activists seeking to take us back to 1855, when minorities “knew their place”, women couldn’t vote, and white men took what they wanted from either of them.
Compared to Mitt Romney, Richard M. Nixon, the disgraced former president forced from office for lying, is a saint.
Over at the GOS they’ve got the latest Slick Willard Daily Lie
New Romney lie: Scare Ohioans by falsely claiming Chrysler may move all Jeep production to China
Robert should be ashamed to use the term holocaust…..all it does is lessen the description of what happened to jews in ww2.
Robert sounds like another clown deserving of a beatdown.
Well, suppose a Republican-dominated Congress decided to deport the ten million undocumented aliens in the USA and close the Mexican border with troops? Would that qualify?
The Real Romney, or at least as close as it gets to there being a Real Romney, is Moderate Mitt The White Obama. If elected, he wont be able to work with his own crazies in the house or the Tea Party fools around the country. Romney will work with John Bohner (who can only get half of the house Republicans to work with him) and a handful of Republicans and Democrats and be a “place holder” president, neither bad, nor good, just filling in until we can find someone we actually like to do the job.
Ryan’s on the ticket, because few people wanted the slot and Romney had to have someone like Ryan on the ticket to get elected.
If Ryan, or more like when Ryan, and the crazies in the house get tired of Moderate Mitt & John Bohner and try to flex some muscle Bohner, Romney, and the legacy Republican talking heads will smack them down.
63% of federal spending is “auto pilot” spending. With healthcare costs going up, debt payments going up, and the number of people on social security going up that 63% will be going up. Government doesn’t sign contracts and budgets one year at a time, these are all long term things. A couple years of “do nothing” government wont be that big of a deal.
@15
The 63% figure and the term “autopilot spending” taken from here:
I’m with rhp. Holocaust has a very specific historical association; as a broader term, even, it’s almost always applied to cases where the perpetrators intentionally committed genocide.
Romney/Ryan will cost millions of lives in the short term, through both wars and economic collapse, and long term will contribute to the loss of billions through accelerated climate change. But it’s not like they’re trying to kill off half of humanity. They just don’t give a fuck about them; if The Help all goes off and dies and shit, they can hire more. It’s not their problem. They’ll get theirs.
The rest of us? The other 99.9999 percent of humanity? So what?
Yes, I think it would be that bad.
# 14: Well, in order to qualify as a Holocaust as practiced by the Nazis, Romney would not only have to successfully deport (or encourage “self-deportation”) of every Hispanic in the U.S., and then mount an invasion of Mexico, Central America, and So. America to kill off those who were outside his grasp.
I think Romney would rather keep them as subsistance-level servants making products for the benefit of the financial powers within the Republican Party. You know, providing “competition” between Mexican and Chinese workers for who can get the lowest wages and get treated the worst by their employers.
@14
Nope.
Gay people and women and minorities are going to have their rights degraded under a romney administration. He has to do something to placate the social conservatives.
rph3033, #18: What is already being done in Columbia, and now being shipped to Mexico is at least a start. I know–let’s use drones!
The radical right has shown no empathy for anyone other than old rich white men. I see no reason they would scruple at genocide. They are already advocating ethnic cleansing.
Perhaps they would not do this. But the point remains: there’s no reason to think a radical right government would be less than horrible domestically or internationally. The are full of hatred and seem to know no law but fear.
No Time for Fascists, #20: yes. It does seem atrocities against women, gays, blacks, Mexicans, Muslims, and perhaps Jews would be likely.
Most well-off white male critics of the radical right talk about policy, but identity is the key.
As a follow-on to that, I am remembering that radical right Christians are pleased with the existence of the State of Israel because they believe it might be a sign of the end times, and the final victory of their god. Jews are to be sacrificial victims in that story, though they are to be redeemed in the end.
Atrocities is a stronger word than i would use. Negation of marriage equality. Possibly ban further gay adoptions. Getting rid of work place protections and removing sexual orientation from discrimination laws. Make it easy and culturally acceptable to discriminate again.
I cannot conceive of restored Sodomy laws or black lists or rounding us up and putting us in fences.
NTfF, #25: With this lot, I expect the worst, because that’s what they have reliably given us. At least, a Romney Justice Department is unlikely to prosecute discrimination or hate crime cases where gay are involved, which takes us all the way back to blacklists and lynch law. They may keep their hands clean, but why wouldn’t they, when there are so many people willing to do their dirty work without orders?
Oh, now that brings up another possibility: when the lynchings start, people might shoot back. Actual civil war. Is it possible?
Actual civil war. Is it possible?
I know Serial “It’s acceptable to humiliate and degrade any stranger until they earn his respect” Conservative was salivating for white militias to open fire on black ones in Detroit.
I would say no under normal circumstances, but if the economy tanks and people get hungry and scared, yes.
“Rather than impeaching the President”
Uh….how, Darryl? Could you really fathom Tom DeLay’s House passing Articles of Impeachment and Bill Frist’s Senate convicting their own guy? Or do you think “We The People” should have risen up and tried to foment some kind of revolution? Naaah…the majority of Americans with guns would have given Bush a pass if he’d raped and murdered their own children on live television. (Instead he sent them off to have body parts blown off in his two farcial wars.)
Worst case scenario? The neocon hawks Romney has advising him talk him into attacking Iran.
Putin means what he says about “grave consequences” and WWIII breaks out.
OH NOES! TEH EVUL ROMNEE MONZTUR IZ GUNNA ATAK!
Yeah, I think I’m with Max on this one.