I have posted many times during the election campaign but publicly withdrew the observation to the effect that Romney was not litigating the implications of America going bankrupt him him him him him him him him him him him on the assumption that his polling data was properly guiding him. We now know he was blundering about as much as we were. We conservatives assumed that message, that the America understood we were going bankrupt, because that is what we believe and it is, frankly, human nature to expect others to see the world the way we do. They simply do not.
Our assumption of the common understanding was reinforced when Romney picked Ryan whose entire approach is based on the belief that an economic crash is inevitable if we do not reform. But somehow Ryan's message at first was channeled into a fight over Medicare and the issue of our economic peril was lost, perhaps because it was simply assumed. But the electorate does not share our set of assumptions about the state of the economy anymore, evidently, than it shares our assumptions about social issues like free birth control.
I take issue with the author, though, about his scenario. He tells us that after the crash the pain will bring electorate to reality and they will turn to conservative solutions. I do not believe that for a minute. History tells us that with rare exceptions that the remedy for failed socialism is not reform but more socialism. For every Margaret Thatcher we have a counterreformation which puts socialism back into the British economy. For every Greece we have rioters in the streets of Athens demanding more socialism. For a great recession precipitated if not occasioned by socialist policies generating unsound home mortgages, we have federal programs for more unsound home mortgages. It is impossible to conclude that the socialist programs of Barack Obama which deepened the recession have been regarded by the electorate as reason to reform either him or the system.
We have academia and journalism telling the electorate they should always take the wrong lessons from history, from current events, from foreign affairs, and from economic conditions. I doubt if the next downturn will provide an epiphany to the electorate, most likely it will cause the country to lurch even further left.
Saul Alinsky is smiling.
