I have a little cognitive dissonance. On one hand, I have a book called, The World Hasn't Progressed in 5,000 Years and on the other hand, I say that the election proves that America is no longer a center right country. Did America really change over the years? Is now the silent majority that was center right turn left? At first, it seems yes, but I'm beginning to reconsider.
Before the election I hoped for rain in Cuyahoga county (the county most of Cleveland is in) since without Cuyahoga county Romney would be up 6 points. I hoped for rain because voter turn out drops 60% when it rains, usually the people that come out to vote through rain, sleet or snow are Republicans. The Democrats stay home, and given that Obama only won buy 100,000 votes, I think if it rained, Ohio would have gone to Romney That being said, even if Romney won Ohio, Obama still would have won the election so who really cares? Someone once asked me, "If New York is so liberal, how come the congressmen are Republicans" At the time, Pataki was our governor and he is a Republican. Mayor Bloomberg was running as a Republican and hadn't switched his position to "Independent' as of yet. I thought about this and I couldn't answer the question at the time. My only explanation was this "Silent majority" thing. Now, I realized that my prayer for rain and the fact that Republicans have won seats in very blue states like Massachusettes, New York and New Jersey are related. A lot of congressional and mayoral elections happen on an off-Presidential election year. Senate is up every six years, so doesn't correspond always with the 4 years of the Presidential and Mayoral is always an off year. Fewer people vote in the mid-term elections, and it's really only the people who believe it's an honor to vote...which are the same people that will go even if it's raining. Thus, Republicans can win in blue states because liberals only come out to vote every four years.
The reason why so many experts picked Romney to win was because they didn't think that African-Americans, young people and Hispanics would come out to vote as much as they did in 2008. When polling, most of them asked more Democrats than Republicans, thus these "experts" used a curve to judge it since there was no way the demographics would come up the way they did in 2008. Instead, they averaged the weight by the votes in 2008, 2004, 2000 and 1996. They were dead wrong, in fact, more of these demographics came out in 2012 than they did in 2008. What we're seeing now isn't a shift in America to the left, we're seeing more people motivated to vote. In some places you can vote online. Since it's easier and more convenient to vote, more people are voting. The more people that vote, the less likely a Republican will win because there are more people who are influenced by Hollywood, TV and celebrities, which are predominantly liberals than people who step back and see the big picture. Yes, in 2008, President Obama won, lowered taxes on middle to lower income people like me so my paycheck went up. But, Obamacare made it more expensive for my boss to give me health insurance, he took the hit for a couple years but then gave in and took more out of my paycheck. This and people got laid off which is very rare in my company for office employees. The problem is, the negative side effects come later, while the positive was instantaneous. I can see how someone in my position would say, "well, I got more money so go Obama" without realizing that the people as a whole are hurting because now employers have more trouble hiring and paying people.
I am not a Republican, I'm an objectivist. Democracy is about the power to the people to vote. If more people are voting, that's good, on an objective level, for what Democracy stands for. I do believe the Democrats are worse for the country than Republicans but that doesn't mean people should be dissuaded from voting. Now people believe voting is important, maybe that's because of how close Bush vs. Gore was. This is a good thing. I don't even know if I want to write here, "Now they just need to stop being selfish and look at the big picture." because as an objectivist, I think selfishness is good. When Russians had to wait in line for bread, gas and other essentials under the communist regime, they fought tooth and nail to get out. When Americans had to wait in four hour lines for gas and couldn't go to the grocery store for a week, they never turned their anger to the government. Ayn Rand would say that an Obama victory is good because the country would be messed up enough for everyone to finally get why socialism, legislation based on emotion and the left policy can't work. This way a real conservative can win, just like Raegan won because Carter fucked up America. I still believe the world hasn't progressed in 5,000 years. Raegan was only 30 years ago. So, Obama may be the new Carter. I guess another blog is needed to attack Dick Morris for saying that the current state of America is just as bad as Carter. It's not even close. So, America was never a center right country, but a majority didn't vote. A majority of voters were center right. Now, more people are voting, so your message needs to hit more people.
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