Analyze This
So I talked to my mother for the first time since election day, and a few minutes in she asked what my "analysis" was.
I said, "Analysis of what?"
The election, she wanted to know.
I said, "What's to analyze? Romney was unlikeable, he contracted himself in public within the limits of the short media attention span, he pandered to the conservatives to get the nomination and then tried to present as a moderate but nobody believed him, he appeared to have no vision of the future apart from making himself POTUS, and he was a jerk, in public, on multiple occasions."
She mentioned the 47%.
I said, "Yeah, that was him being a jerk in private; but when people saw that clip they believed that it was the real him; and there was plenty of public evidence to confirm that."
And she went on to talk about various other things she had heard from the media but I was thinking you know, there is not that much to analyze. For the second time in two Presidential election cycles the Republicans ran a candidate who had absolutely nothing to offer apart from the fact that he was an older white man. OK, maybe Mitt was also offering tax breaks for the rich, though he did deny that several times during the debates. But really. It does not surprise me that Romney lost. It is not a fact which I think requires a lot of explanation. He really had absolutely nothing to offer. Nothing good, anyway.
So the scramble for analysis is kind of funny to watch. The only legitimate reason to be surprised by this result, really, is the fact that in 2000 and 2004, the Republican Party ran a different candidate who had nothing good to offer and was successful both times. But of course they were 'successful' only in that they managed to get their bastard into the White House; and anyway, say what you want about George W. (and Lord knows I have), he and his team did have a vision for America. It was an evil, dystopian, apocalyptic vision; but it was certainly there.
Still they ask: What changed? And I will tell them: 1) Demographics and 2) in 2012, Americans had been reminded by the Obama presidency that they can ask for more from a president. That they can actually get it. That the person in the White House doesn't have to be a natural disaster and an international embarrassment and a petty idiotic tyrant. That the POTUS position can be something other than the office of Looter-In-Chief. That...you know what, I'm not going to keep going, because either they get it or they don't, right? We've had four years of a guy who, disappointing as his first term has been for progressives in many ways (I am one, I feel it, you don't need to give me the list) does at least have the good of the country in mind when he makes his decisions.
We have a real president. So we were not interested in taking on another fake one. Especially not after Sandy.
It's not hard to understand, guys. You lost because your candidate stank. You lost because your campaign stank. You lost because you thought fear of a Black president was strong enough to carry you into the White House all by its lonesome. You lost because you thought that all a President needs to be is white, male, and rich.
And that is not true any more. And till you understand that, you will go on losing.
So don't pay any more people to analyze this debacle for you. If you don't get it now, you never will.
The Plaid Adder
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