I suspect 2012 will be 1932, but in reverse.
>>>I suspect 2012 will be 1932, but in reverse.<<<
I’ve had the same suspicion, although perhaps it’s just hopeful thinking.
I see Obama as the end of the line of the New Deal. Obama has tried many FDR tactics, including attacking the Supreme Court, flooding the executive with alphabet agencies and programs, spending to “prime the pump,” creating a “brain trust” of helpful “czars” to assist his program, and unrelenting leftist hatred of the rich, the Constitution, and tradition. Obama is seemingly hellbent on instituting FDR’s Four Freedoms, for instance. Obama’s also using Bush as his own personal Hoover. The trouble with all this politically is that the problems today are the creation of New Deal (and Great Society) policy.
So we have Romney. A rich guy. A flip-flopper. Not really a conservative. Someone from the Northeast, from a rich family. FDR was seen as a lightweight himself at the time, and there was a lot of mistrust and suspicion of the guy by the Democrats. When he got into office, though, there was a whirlwind of change.
My hope is that Romney, if elected, will metaphorically rip off his suit and institute a conservative revolt. It would be a surprise, but the spring of 1933 was a surprise, too. Romney’s past may not tell us much when he steps into the Oval Office and has the power of the presidency at his fingertips. At least I hope so. And as I’ve been told in the past, hope is not a strategy.
God help us.