Husband. Father.
Mormon. Republican. Flip flopper. Tax avoider. Pragmatist.
Part-Robot. Part-arsehole.
Mitt Romney is many
things.
Presidential material
he is not.
After a long drawn out
period of 'Indecision' as Jon Stewart mockingly put it, Mitt was
hailed as the saviour of the Republicans. A man so middle of road, so
likeable, he could win the hearts of swing voters in the US – after
all they truly decide elections... allegedly.
Except, he's not middle
of the road – he may like to slip and slide all over it a little,
but really he's planted firmly on the side of the 1%. A man so out of
touch with voters (and reality in general) he thinks that, among the
47% of the population he's thrown on the scrapheap, working class
white men on welfare in trailer parks up and down the US won't vote
for him – He's “not interested in them”. But they do and they
will – because their concern isn't adequate healthcare or
contraception but is instead keeping immigrants who steal their
American jobs out. And they're willing to support the man who
supports the men who then outsource their American jobs abroad –
and line their Swiss Bank accounts with money, that incidentally
doesn't get taxed and doesn't actually contribute to the welfare that
the good folks in the trailer parks receive because they were born
into poverty, couldn't ever dream of going to college because its
expensive and full of liberal atheist communists, while they have
their hours cut back at the factory to maintain profitability and
struggle to provide for their three children, the oldest of whom is
pregnant and can't get an abortion or she'd better not show up for
church next Sunday...
Romney pays less tax
then most and seemingly lives in world where everyone has an equal
chance at success, oblivious to the financial and psychological
struggles so many people in poverty and working class backgrounds
face.
Class struggle in
America is once again becoming a reality, and Romney's rotting corpse
of an election campaign is the most stark reminder that class
consciousness still exists in America. It has defined this election
more than any other. Years ago I attended a conference where one
woman told us that she strived to share only good news about her
homeland, and reassured us that Americans are finally waking up to
foreign policy disasters, and domestic social and economic issues.
While another win for Obama is not necessarily an alarm call, this
ongoing debate about class, this distinction between the Romney's of
the world and real people, is making American's less passive, less
accepting that things will always remain the same and they should
just shut up and get on with it.
The truth of the matter
is that this election will not be decided by the undecided but by the
apathetic. Obama won four years ago because people who had never
voted before came out and made themselves heard. They need to keep
doing that, only then will their confidence grow and they will have
guts to look beyond the Red and the Blue candidates on the ballot
sheet. Voter fraud measures are there simply to hinder the people who
make the biggest difference from actually turning up to vote.
At this stage, its
almost certain that Obama will win. He's leading in the polls at a
critical time and I have it on good authority that Romney is
currently less popular than George W. Bush – he's gone just one
gaffe too far. And as I've said unashamedly countless times, I'm
happy about Obama's lead. A win for Obama is, if nothing else, a win
for affordable healthcare and the protection of women's rights and
gay rights. He's not perfect, but the tragedy is there's no one safer
to watch over those still sleeping, or jolt awake those lightest of
sleepers.
