Romney is Unfit to Lead
WHY ROMNEY IS UNFIT TO LEAD US
by Ben Gleib
I have watched this very long campaign very closely. I’ve come to the conclusion that Mitt Romney is unfit for office. Why? Just follow the logic.
It doesn’t really matter which guy has what economic plan, because sometimes tax cuts work to help the economy because people have more money, so they can spend more and invest more, and our engine gets moving again. And sometimes tax increases work to help the economy, because we need to invest in our infrastructure, in our schools, in our military, in our future, and that stuff is not free, and that stuff creates jobs. (It so happens that in the last 20 years the right wing’s economic strategy has been much worse for our economy. But I won’t mention that.) In the history of our nation, each works sometimes.
I also won’t mention that while we are still climbing out of the worst economic crisis since The Great Depression, it’s one hundred percent reasonable to ask our richest people to chip in just a little bit more, for our nation, when they ask much poorer people to risk their lives in war, for our nation. I won’t say that chipping in a little bit more also serves the interests of the rich, because it won’t hurt them at all, and if our economy tanks they will lose much of the value of their savings. Simply, if our economy fails, their wealth will be worth much less. But I’m not gonna say that, because this paragraph actually doesn’t matter. This election is not about that.
This election is about our standards. Mitt Romney has demonstrated on far too many occasions that he doesn’t care about the people he is asking to lead. And he can’t relate to our problems. You can hear it in his words, and you can see it in his plans, because they only benefit the people he can relate to – other super rich people. How can you elect someone who does not have your best interests in mind? That makes no logical sense.
And if that wasn’t enough, he also doesn’t even stand for anything. He just says anything he has to say to win votes. Even if it means constantly changing his principles. How can we elect a man who constantly changes who he is? How can we trust a chameleon? And especially how can we elect him when the policies he has landed on, and has promised the Republican Party he will enact, are wrong, greedy, cold, and unjust on almost every issue that gives him a chance to show if maybe deep down he actually cares? How can you trust a man you clearly cannot trust? A man who gets called out just in the last week for a deceitful ad that makes us think the production of Jeeps is moving to China, and after he is caught in that deceit, instead of pulling the ad, he doubles down on the lie and runs it more, hoping we are so close to the election that people won’t learn the truth in time. A man who also in the last week claimed he was canceling campaign events to put on Hurricane Sandy “relief events,” and then still campaigns at them, and stages fake photo opportunities having his supporters hand him canned food he bought himself! Especially when the Red Cross doesn’t even want or accept food during a crisis. They need blood and money. But this man cares more about becoming President than actually helping the people he pretends he actually wants to help. And canned food photographs better than money. These two instances are both in just the last week! I bet if Mitt Romney were speaking to a classroom of kindergartners he’d tell them he plans to lower the voting age to 5. Voting for a man like that is like meeting an obviously shady used car salesman and asking him if he’ll babysit your child. It’s not a safe bet. And in my estimation, this behavior disqualifies you from leading our great nation.
But does it really matter who becomes our President? Does it really matter if you vote? I know some people have the feeling that Obama is a more honest, caring guy, but also think the President is just a powerless puppet, and if neither one is really going to change the system then they why should they waste their time?
Because even within a messed up system, which leader we choose will create some very tangible changes. This election is about real things. So even if you think the whole system is corrupt, or it’s too late to fix it, your day-to-day life, and basic happiness, will be affected by these changes. I mean even if you’re going down on the Titanic, I’m pretty sure you’d rather fall comfortably into the water than hit your head on a series of pipes on the way down.
So what are these changes? What are the stakes I’m referring to? Glad you asked. Romney supports the Republican party platform of overturning Roe VS Wade, and therefore wants to take away a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body. I guess women in binders don’t need rights. Barack Obama trusts the women of our country enough to not make us go backwards and take their rights away. Obama also supports equal pay for women. Romney does not. Obama has a plan to save Medicare so it will always be there for us. Romney wants to turn it into a voucher system, and when that voucher runs out, good luck with the ‘ole health there, Grandpa! Obama believes health care is a right for every American. And so he passed exactly that, Universal Health Care, and in so doing, he will insure 30 million of our friends and countrymen who were without it. This will obviously save countless American lives. Because without healthcare people die. Romney promises to start repealing it on his first day in office. Even though he passed exactly that in his state, and knows how important it is, and knows it works, he says he will overturn it, because it is a popular talking point of the extreme wing of his party, and it’s what he feels he needs to say to get elected. So he will take American’s health care away. He is running for President literally saying that he will take away the health care that millions of our brothers and sisters will now have. Simply because it is what his party wants politically. This is the moral code of Mitt Romney, a man who half of you are still considering voting for.
Now Romney will tell you that he just thinks states are better suited to implement things like this, instead of the federal government. Yet the federal government is what he wants to run!!! FOLLOW THE LOGIC HERE: He doesn’t think the thing that he wants to be in charge of… is capable of doing what he already did for his state. He is basically saying that he doesn’t think he is a strong enough leader to use his unique experience in implementing health care coverage for millions of people in his state, to do it for everyone in the country. But he is asking us to believe he is the best person to be in charge of the country.
The truth on this may not fit in to extreme right wing ideology, but the truth is our problems right now are not so local anymore. They are national. They are global. They are bigger than one city, or one state. We need to elect somebody who has the confidence that they can lead, and help, and save our entire nation. All at once. Romney’s cutthroat, winner take all, “corporations are people my friend,” mentality may be good as a CEO, buying up companies, whether or not the jobs stayed here or whether or not it put thousands of people out of work. But it is no good as President of our nation.
This is no time for small ball. Yet Mitt Romney’s plan for Health Care? Send it back to the states. His plan for FEMA? (Before the storm hit and he couldn’t stand by one of his positions again,) let individual states or the private sector deal with huge natural disasters. His plan for the economy? Just cut taxes, even for the very wealthy, especially for the very wealthy, cut regulation, and let the free market create all the jobs. Even though they were given that chance just a few years ago, and proved once again that their greed is too strong, and they gambled with people’s lives, and almost crumbled our economy.
We are still hurting from it. We are still recovering to be certain, but for the last three and a half years we have been climbing our way out. For the last 32 consecutive months we have had job growth in the private sector. And even conservative economists admit that a crisis the size we were in takes closer to ten years to fully recover from. Mitt Romney even literally says “Government doesn’t create jobs.” Are you kidding me? If that’s what you believe, why should we elect you? Because government can and does create jobs. Obama has done it. And bold leadership can continue it. When people desperately need jobs! Should we elect you just because you want it real bad? Should we just put you in office when Obama has already saved or created more than 5.5 million jobs? Why? Because you like being in charge of things?
I will repeat that question. If you don’t believe that it’s the federal government’s job to create jobs, or to protect vulnerable Americans from dying from diseases, or even to help our citizens when we are attacked by a brutal natural disaster, then why should we elect you?
I will repeat the question again. If you don’t believe half our citizens (women) deserve equal pay, or the right to decide what they do with their own bodies, then why should we elect you?
I’ll repeat it one last time. If you don’t believe that almost half of the country (47% of us, the sick, veterans who need government assistance, the poor who make too little to pay income taxes) are your responsibility to care for, and that you will never be able to help them, and that you are “not concerned about the very poor,” then why should we elect you?
If you follow the logic, the answer is simple. We shouldn’t.
Well said as always sir! This election is about believing that all men (and women) are created equal & believing in the inscription on the Statue of Liberty. That is the only way this country can achieve living up to the “greatest country in the world” slogan.