Facts seldom matter in the United
States. Perception produced by spin has become the fabric of our lives. A tweet
is currency, unlike an essay: it not only gets to the point, it is the point
because it is pointed and flies like an arrow. Give a zinger, and don’t linger.
In God We Trust.
Obama lost the first debate not only
because his energy was low; he lost it because he succumbed to factuality. The
problem with an incumbent is that he goes through a metamorphosis during his
first term. He starts out as a butterfly, all colorful and full of light. By
the time four years are up he has transformed into a dung beetle. All the crap
of his presidency is dragged out into the open for all to see, rolled up into a
ball, and attached to him with a chain. He can deliver slivers of reality all
he wants, but the public is already gawking at a new butterfly full of
promises.
The new butterfly, Mitt Romney, is
all silver and gold, except for his face, which is bronze. He twinkles and
flits from position to position like a butterfly in a flower garden. He is a creature above it all, far out of
reach of any political iguana with a sharp tongue. You get the impression from
his post-debate campaign that he somehow spoke truth to pretense and pummeled
defenseless Obama with fact after fact until the President stood listless on
the podium at Magness Arena. For someone who never found success in sports, Romney
sure looked agile.
The truth is Magness Arena should be
renamed Madness Arena after Romney’s brazen use of weapons of mass deception
and Obama’s apparent shock that Romney dared to use them on prime time
television. It was rope-a-dope time with Mitt transforming from mere butterfly
to spider in butterfly disguise threading the stage with so much supply-side
spin Obama became a rapt wrapper – just another suit.
Now Romney is pro-abortion. At the
debate he was suddenly pro-regulation. By the end of his campaign he will have
had so many pros and cons the American public will finally conclude he is
nothing but a PROfessional CON-artist. But
no: The American public is so gullible, so emotional, so star-struck by anything
that glitters it will embrace the face and ignore the truth. This brazen-faced
butterfly Romney just may land in the White House, not because he has a
coherent philosophy or plan.
Politics is really a form of professional
wrestling (ask Linda McMahon of Connecticut) where the candidates dress up in
gaudy platitudes and promises and do battle on a stage. The guy who looks the
best at the end wins, never mind how many real blows he lands.
America is essentially becoming a
banana republic in so many ways, not the least of which is signaled by the
growing divide between rich and poor. That so many in the 47 percent could vote
for a man who writes them off suggests just how irrational America is. Tea Partier is an inappropriate name for
them. Banana Republican is much better.
Here’s a definition of a Banana Republican: a person who is
duped into voting against his own interests either by himself or by somebody
else. He may be a member of the Tea Party or just some uninformed voter who
cannot or will not separate the facts from the chaff. He may be a billionaire
or a pauper. What he does not understand is that Democrats have presided over
the greatest increases in both the stock market and the main street market over
the last 80 years. Republicans have presided over none.* He fails to understand
that we are all better off when we are all better off.
Let’s face it. If you sit in front of
Rush Limbaugh or Fox News and absorb the high calorie-low nutrition political
diet they feed you, you will vote against your self-interest. It’s as simple as
that. Big Brother Rush is in your head, in your gut, not Big Government or Big
Bird. If there is any trickle down
dynamic going on out there in America, it is trickle-down self-deception.
* See The Economist: Buttonwood: “Voting with the
wallet” October 6, 2012
