Election

I got to eavesdrop on an actual Romney voter at the pre-trick or treating Mommy Mafia get together, and it was an interesting sensation.  If there's one thing the internet has taught me it's that nobody ever convinces anyone else of anything- people either come around on their own or take their fixations to the grave, so I don't ever engage these situations IRL.  Online I'll speak my peace & walk away, but in the real world I take a pass on arguing about anything important.  Socializing with people I don't really know is enough of a pain in the ass already, why make it any harder on myself.

So two dads are talking and I've already slapped a 'to be avoided' sticker on the one whining about the 'outrageous' tax burden of Californians. Over the course of 30 minutes or so Tax Dad complained about difficulty getting health care due to insurers shunning anyone with pre-existing conditions, then slamming "Obamacare" for 'killing jobs' (somehow?) and increasing insurance prices.  Sane Dad tries to explain the advantages of the ACA requiring coverage for those with pre-existing conditions and making up the difference on higher premiums, but he may as well have been talking to a head of cabbage.
Tax Dad states his commitment to Mitt, which Sane Dad questions on the grounds of Mitt's not having issued a plan for anything beyond huge tax cuts for the wealthy, paid for by unicorns farting gold dust (or higher taxes on everyone else, depending on whether you believe Mitt or the consensus of the economic community).

"Oh no, Mitt has a plan to RESTORE AMERICA!" declared Tax Dad in a strident voice, eyes aglow with fervor.

Ladies and gentlemen, your Romney voter.
Someone who, in a rational world, would be ardently supporting Obama because Obama will get his family affordable health care coverage while protecting his tax rate.  But who is instead supporting Mitt, who will repeal affordable health care for his family while raising his taxes in order to give money away to plutocrats and corporations.

It seems to me the core Republican voter is a profoundly unconscious person.  They either don't examine their motivations in any real way, or they perceive them inaccurately.  So a slogan ("RESTORE AMERICA!") carries more weight with them than the reality of their future with either candidate.  You see this unconsciousness over and over again, as when Craig T. Nelson stated "I've been on foodstamps and welfare, did anyone help me out? No."  

It's a mentality that lets people pretend that being anti-abortion is "pro life", trampling the autonomy of an adult woman in favor of a glob of parasitic cells.  That access to an emergency room qualifies as health coverage.  That the opinion of educated experts is suspect and the "gut feeling" of uninformed cretins is sacred.

As the chances of the electorate engaging in a massive round of Political Therapy is nil, we'll just have to sweat out close elections between Republicans intent on repealing The Enlightenment and Democrats who, while uncomfortably corporatist, at least grasp that a functional government is much preferable to the alternative.

I'm happy with Obama's prospects in this election and looking forward to discovering what manner of deluded maniac the Republicans cough up in 2016.  People who think the R's are going to wake up in the rubble of this election and, startled, recover their rationality are doomed to disappointment.  They chained themselves to the runaway train of religious extremism & know-nothingism and they're stuck riding that baby all the way to the end of the line.