The Next President of the United States...

A lot of Americans live under the delusion that President Obama will win re-election in November. I beg to differ.

Yes, the changing demographics lean Democrats, and that trend is poised to increase in the future. Think Republicans don't know that? They do, and they are doing something about it. They have launched the greatest disenfranchisement campaign since the Voting Rights Act was passed. They have already purged hundreds of thousands of voters of the rolls in swing states, and their state legislatures have passed laws which are little but poll taxes in disguise. Their shenanigans include counting NRA member cards as valid proof of ID, but most forms of student IDs as invalid. Octogenerians who have never had trouble voting, and who live in Democratic-leaning precincts have received letters informing them that they needed to produce proof of citizenship lest they should be removed from voter rolls (this includes veterans who served in World War II).

Daily Kos and many national outlets reported that Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Mike Turzai (R-Allegheny) bragged that the Voter ID law passed by the Pennsylvania state legislature was designed to deliver the state to Gov. Romney in November:

House Majority Leader Mike Turzai (R-Allegheny) suggested that the House’s end game in passing the Voter ID law was to benefit the GOP politically. “We are focused on making sure that we meet our obligations that we’ve talked about for years,” said Turzai in a speech to [Republican State Committee] members Saturday. He mentioned the law among a laundry list of accomplishments made by the GOP-run legislature. “Pro-Second Amendment? The Castle Doctrine, it’s done. First pro-life legislation – abortion facility regulations – in 22 years, done. Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done.” 

Last I checked, there is still no requirements in federal law that verifiable voting machines should be used in federal elections. This means that each state is vulnerable to the shenanigans of partisans secretaries of state and the voting machine manufacturers who can connive to make sure that the candidate of their choice wins the election, no matter what voters want.

Add to that the widespread perception, which is reality-based, that President Obama has governed more to appease moderates, independents, and zombie-centrist, than the base he was so good at energizing in 2008, and there is a justified fear that many of those who voted for him in 2008 will sit the election out in November.

Add to all of that the fact that Romney's fundraising is thrashing Obama's with the help of Super PACs with a virtually unlimited supply of money, a fact which will become decisive as election day approaches and the airwaves will be flooded with negative and frightening ads about the current president and what his re-election would mean.

Finally, add to all of the above the fact that vast numbers of  American electors are so apathetic, so gullible, so uninformed, that they believe the following:

• that taxes have gone up under President Obama 
• that the Affordable Care Act--a law designed to appease the American Medical Association, AHIP, and the medical/pharmaceutical industrial complex--is the equivalent of communism (a myth that the AMA started inculcating in the minds of Americans in the 50's with then corporate shill and B-movie actor Ronald Reagan as their spokesman)
• that Operation Fast and Furious was designed by the Obama administration as a Trojan Horse to deprive law-abiding Americans of their Second Amendment Rights
• that President Obama is a Kenyan Manchurian president whose goal is to replace Christianity with Islam

and I could go on... Why should anyone believe, let alone hope, that a Romney presidency is out of the realm of possibility? It is not only possible, it is likely and almost completely unavoidable at this point.

There is no hope for progressives. Not even secession. California replaced a semi-inept governor with the Terminator, and it wasn't even the first time that Californians chose a bad actor as their first citizen. The people of Massachusetts elected Mitt Romney as their governor. This proves that even supposed Democratic strongholds are not above making ludicrously asinine choices, and that there is no safe haven for progressives (with the possible exception of Vermont), a state too small for even the relatively small number of Americans with both a brain and a heart and the will to make things better rather than irrevocably worse.

Tell me why I should see the glass half full, if you dare.