NATURE AND THE 2012 ELECTION DRIVE REPUBLICANS TO FACE SCIENCE AND REALITY

THE WATERSHED 2012 ELECTION BRINGS THE END OF REAGANISM, ROMNEYISM, RYANISM, RANDISM AND GLOBAL-WARMING-DENIAL.

The reelection of President Obama has turned out to be a watershed election, one to be remembered and revisited for years to come, comparable in its effects on the direction the nation will take to perhaps the election of FDR in 1932 and of Ronald Reagan in the election of 1980. The turning point event was preceded on the Mid Atlantic shore by Hurricane Sandy, which carried fierce winds and a 13 foot storm surge which devastated large swaths of New Jersey, Manhattan, Staten Island, and Long Island. The twin events have forced Republicans to face both the reality of science and uncomfortable political truths.

Sandy was the largest Atlantic Hurricane on record, second costliest storm in history, and a cyclonic event only surpassed by Katrina in 2005. The storm was unusual in its late development (10-25-2012), its interplay with a massive mid-latitude-storm, its large size, high winds (110 mph gusts), nearly 200 fatalities, and damage which brought the Nation's largest population center (of 19 million inhabitants) and the US cultural and financial center to a standstill for days on end with flooded subways, swamped cross-East River tunnels, flooded streets, downed electrical lines, no electrical service, and with critical wifi and telephone service down or crippled by overuse. Some areas of the metropolitan NYC area are still without power or access to heating fuel and gasoline, as I write this. The estimated costs so far are about about $52 billion US dollars.

The two events, striking almost simultaneously have commingled in the minds of the electorate to produce changes in perception which will be seen as a transformation point in recent US history. These two events altered citizen's concepts and will change the manner in which we conduct our affairs from here on. These two events, one political and one natural, brought new conceptual reality to our political and economic philosophy, and a new environmental awareness forced on our collective minds.

In the political sphere. What the electorate achieved in the 2012, 57th quadrennial election was earth shattering. The voters were given a clear choice between two widely divergent and distinct policies and philosophies represented by the candidates, Mitt Romney (R) and Barack Obama (D). They made a clear choice. The former, a wealthy business man, clearly positioned himself as a near-caricature of a Daddy Warbucks figure, with far-right policy pronouncements of tax cuts for the well to do and who openly espoused antiquated run-of-the-mill, Republican anti-government pablum from the Reagan era. Romney's party offered 1980s solutions, mixed with more recent and more radical economic and social dogma (these latter supported by his running mate, Paul-Ryan, a "Tea Party" member). Their proposals for the nation's future were salted with fringe-element postures on abortion mixed with pseudo-philosophical statements derived from (unbelievably!) a Russian emigre, and 1950s-era fiction-writer--Ayan Rand. Opposing Romney, the cautious, center-left Democrat candidate Barack Obama espoused a progressive set of policies which would protect the middle class, the existing social safety net, increase taxes on the super wealthy and focus more on nation building at home than abroad. The electorate overwhelmingly cast their votes, in spite of wide-spread sinister attempts at voter suppression by the Republicans, for President Obama. The non-white, the college educated, single females, the young, Latinos, Asians, Blacks and the lower 99 % on the earning and wealth rungs, came out in force to vote for Mr. Obama. The Republican candidate garnered the votes of the super-wealthy, the top 1% of upper echelon earners, and right wing, white-male voters. These citizens came out in force in those red-colored states, (pumping up the popular vote) but they simply did not have enough votes to carry the country as a whole and get their man elected. Candidate Obama ended up with 332 electoral college votes (62% of the total) to Romney's 206. Obama won the popular vote (50.6%- 47.9%) and the Democrats held the Senate and got a plurality of popular votes in the House but not enough to take over the chamber due to Republican controlled redistricting in 2012.

As a result of the clear choices the electorate had in 2012, it is clear that they rejected the policies of Reaganism, of the Mitt Romney-Paul Ryan brand, and the concepts of extreme individualism and greed, depicted in the novels of Ayn Rand. Thank goodness no sensible candidate will bring Rand up again as a model of his/her thinking on economics and philosophy and we will not be plagued with that nonsense again in any future elections. It was almost laughable if it was not so scary to hear Paul Ryan claim that the Rand (fiction) novels provided him with the underlying precepts of his economic and political beliefs.

In the environmental sphere. With the advent of Katrina in 2005, designated a presumably "once in a 100-year storm," but which was closely followed only seven years later by another "once in a 100 year storm"-(Sandy) is too much of of coincidence to sweep under the table, even for the non-scientist voter. Increasing numbers of more energetic, more destructive atmospheric events, droughts, floods, blizzards, hurricanes all support the contention of atmospheric scientists that the atmosphere is getting hotter, due to increased concentration of greenhouse gases. Higher air temperatures mean greater capacity to hold water vapor which is the energy source of the atmosphere. As water vapor condenses it gives off heat, the more water vapor in the air, the more heat generated. The enormous size and destructive power of Sandy was the result of those facts. The recent records of storms, so far out of the normal range make it increasingly difficult for Republicans to "poo pooh" the reality of global warming. Those who suffered in the damaging wind and storm surge of Sandy, as well as those who experienced the event only through harrowing news stories and graphic photos of devastation in Atlantic City, Staten Island, Manhattan and Long Island can not but help but be altered in their perceptions by the experience. Fearful voters will make their revised thinking known at the polls. They will demand a more realistic, science-based response from our legislators. No longer can the "global warming deniers" who are supported by powerful fossil fuel industries, have their way to foist an alternate reality on the unsuspecting.

Thus, the twin realities of Sandy and the facts of the devastating Republican political loss in the 2012 General Election have intruded into a right-wing world where too often political ideology generate "reality" rather than the observable facts and figures of the natural world. In the real world, life and ideology will have to change drastically for Republicans if they want to survive as a national political party. Let us all remember this, that in the Fall of 2012 the REAL WORLD in the form of the forces of Mother Nature and the voters whom Romney characterized as the "47% takers and moochers" of this great land forced drastic changes on the GOP.

Get the picture?

rjk