Would A President Romney Actually Be Worse Than Another Term of President Obama?

Romney wants so much to serve you

The answer is "Yes." That should be obvious. President Romney would be worse than President Obama in approximately the same way that George W Bush was worse than a President Gore would have been.

Bush's legacy -- if you want to call it that -- will live in infamy while Gore has petered out to near irrelevance in the public mind. Millions were slaughtered or displaced during the Bush era, imperialist aggression was launched, torture instituted as widely known policy (though continually officially denied), civil liberties were sharply curtailed, whole cities suffered ruin and neglect at home and abroad, and so on, all orchestrated, dictated if you will, from the White House. These things were not accidents.

For all his wardrobe and other faults, President Gore is unlikely to have done those things.

As is well known, the terrible things that Bush initiated or expanded during his time in the White House have largely continued under Obama, and Obama has built on the Bush/Cheney structure of rule. Rather than wars of opportunity and aggression, though, Obama prefers stealth Death From Above of "targeted" militants, insurgents, "enemies" of all kinds. He prefers arrests and draconian charges against domestic dissenters and whistleblowers. Civil liberties may be less openly suppressed, but efforts to curb and suppress dissent are no less intense. He prefers to let bygones be bygones with regard to the appalling crimes against humanity of his predecessors in office, and he has much the same attitude toward the banksters who crashed the economy and continue to loot, plunder and pillage with abandon.

It is unlikely that any of those things would change under President Romney. But what would change is this: domestic "order" would be compelled. Revenge is likely to be a paramount motivation for domestic policies. Harm would be no less widespread than it is now, but reward for faith and loyalty would be much greater because there will be more to offer those who are faithful and loyal.

The economic situation for most Americans will not get better; it will stay the same or get demonstrably worse. But there might be a greater sense of "hope" among the suffering masses. Instead of the languid indifference toward their plight as demonstrated time and again by the Obama regime, Romney in office would be constantly talking about the plight of the Lesser People while doing nothing to alleviate it. What would be likely for the poor and unemployed, maybe the homeless and mentally ill as well, is a form of indenture, by which they are provided with some sort of unpaid employment (which they are required to take) in exchange for bare and basic necessities of living, and perhaps forced instruction in thrift and obedience. In other words, don't be surprised if President Romney initiates a whole different order of society for the poor, homeless and mentally ill -- those who "can't make it" -- as opposed to the social order for those who can and do. Make it, that is.

There seems to be a natural point at which the current decline in living standards will begin to mitigate: it's about when 20% lives in poverty, and the 80% remainder feel they have escaped the worst of the Endless Recession. We're not quite there yet, as public employees continue to be shed and the official poverty rate is still slightly under 20%. But once it gets there, which will probably happen no matter who is in office, expect to see the beginnings of economic stabilization for the masses. The economic theory will be that so long as The 80% are doing OK, The Suffering 20% don't matter. They should be Grateful. As long as they're kept in a kind of spare but useful servitude, why should they complain anyway?

They'd be doing something useful for Their Betters. And what would Their Betters be doing under President Romney that they aren't doing now? For one thing, positions of wealth and power would become much more hereditary than they are now, and a true aristocracy of breeding would be instituted and promoted much more widely than we currently see, with Willard as the prime example of the Son following the Father in Power (and Glory if you like).

There would continue to be elections of a sort, but positions would become quasi-officially hereditary in far more cases than now.  That would be unlikely in the extreme to occur under President Obama, though a mostly non-hereditary aristocracy would continue as customary.

Elections would become more farcical, but probably would be taken more seriously, than they are now. Whether there would be so much money dumped into elections would depend on how useful the media chooses to be to the New Settlement Regimes*.

For the money expended in campaigns is almost all fed directly into the maws of media conglomerates, in other words, Plutocracy feeding itself. The economic ideal is for the stronger to exploit the weaker, however, and among Plutocrats and Oligarchs, open exploitation of one another for someone else's profit is not polite. Never mind that the media money is spent to propagandize the masses. Shouldn't they be paying for their own brainwashing? I mean really.

That would mean that campaign money as we've known it would begin to disappear, and taxpayer funded elections might become standard. Of course that couldn't happen until the tax burden is fully shifted off of wealth and onto the middling and poor where it belongs. Taxes, after all, are punishment for failure. Those who do not achieve wealth are ipso facto failures, and only they should be subjected to the compulsion of taxation. Their Betters, on the other hand, will be offered opportunities for voluntary contributions of -- say -- as much as 10% of their income to worthy public causes, or even to the government if they choose.

As now, candidates would still be chosen by Their Betters for the masses to vote for, but the likelihood of insurgent candidates would be reduced to near absence. Elections would be formalities of popular approval for the pre-chosen few.

Eligibility to vote will be further restricted, perhaps only to those who have proved themselves worthy of citizenship and the franchise.

There might be other public rituals besides elections, probably on the pattern of public rallies at stadia and arenas and so forth that will be intended to "build community" and break the strangle-hold of devices and teevee on people's attention and leisure.

While this is a feature Obama might have instituted, given the huge crowds he was drawing during the 2008 campaign and the millions who gathered to freeze in the Mall while he was inaugurated, he quickly set out to disabuse the People that he was there to do anything for them; if anything, Obama policies set out to out Hoover Hoover. Consequently, gathering such enormous crowds now is essentially impossible for him now.

But a Romney Regime would not be holding such rallies for him as such, they would be clearly intended to build a sense of common purpose and community among attendees, more like the patriotic rallies of the past.

Internationally, I suspect that after wiping out Iran -- which seems more and more inevitable at some point, much as the Alexandrian effort to destroy the Persian Empire seems inevitable in hindsight -- all foreign interest will turn to China, or rather turn on China, in an American led effort to cripple and recolonize the Celestial Empire.

Of course this may turn into a long term and ultimately futile campaign which may so debilitate the United States that it... disappears, broken into petty statelets, the remainder partially absorbed by Canada and Mexico.

Don't laugh.

The United States has unfulfilled atonement to make, according to Romney's Mormon Scripture, and further, the Mormon Temple Romney was endowed into -- and in which he is still styled a bishop -- once demanded revenge against the United States for the murder of the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum. Of course they disavow any such thing now, and they say they have not included it in Temple Endowment ceremonies since 1927, but the Oath of Vengeance from previous generations was operative when Romney was Endowed at a Temple ceremony in 1966.

Whether or not a President Romney would consciously seek vengeance on the United States on the basis of that oath is something I think only he would know, but the Mormon church has an intrinsic sense of animus toward the United States government for its interference in and persecution of religious practices, some of which, like polygamy, forced Romney's grandfather to settle his polygamous family in exile in Mexico rather than put up with US government interference. This is not ancient history. For many Mormons, and for all I know the Romneys as well, this is very recent.

Despite all the accusations to the contrary, it's clear that Obama is not actively trying to take vengeance on or otherwise destroy the United States as such -- though his policies largely aid the Overclass in destroying the American People's wealth and security, the American People have often been considered expendable in some cause of the Rich whether it be war, empire, or economic peril for the masses. Obviously, Romney's predatory and parasitical capitalist career at Bain is not in any way outside the norm for his class.

There may be something deeper in both men's views of past (or present) slights and persecutions, but if so, it's not obvious. So I wouldn't be focused on the potential for mayhem implicit in the Mormon Oath of Vengeance. It may or may not even be a factor in a Romney presidency.

What we should keep in mind is that this nation has a deeply rooted theocratic underpinning. Its tendency has always been more or less toward theocracy, not toward secularism and pluralism. Thus, an antagonistic theocratic state like Iran would be considered an existential threat -- even though it is not -- because its theocracy competes with America's own. An overtly secular and atheistic state like China (or the former Soviet Union for that matter) is seen as an existential threat -- even though it is not -- because successful secular/atheist societies compete with America's theocratic-tending state.

No matter whether Romney or anyone else in office thinks and acts directly from a position of religious authority, the result is essentially the same because of the nature of the American state, not because of the nature or religious beliefs of the person in office.

Yes, a Romney presidency would be worse that Obama's in the same way George W Bush's presidency was worse than Gore's might have been, yet none of them are particularly good for the People of the United States due to the nature of its founding, its Constitution, and the state itself.

Bad can easily become worse.
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*[Forgot my footnote!] "New Settlement Regime" is a term coined to describe the means by which the financial shenanigans of the Highest of the Mighty are rationalized and backstopped by governments. As used by me, however, I'm referring to the New Settlement Regime as the ruling corporatocracy itself, as exemplified by one of its members, Mr. Romney of Bain Capital. In other words, the corporatocracy would be rationalizing and backstopping itself through direct extraction and rule.