In Part 1, we looked at the four victories for the gay
marriage movement via three successful approvals and a defeated ban, along with
how Barack Obama didn’t even wait until Election Day to abandon the gay rights
movement. In Part 2, we looked at how
the general elections effectively gave us two more years of the last two
years. Here in Part 3, I have seven
lingering questions that I want to look at briefly here before moving on from
the 2012 election.
First, what kind of information was suppressed in the time
leading up to the election? I’m very
curious to see what comes out in the coming weeks. I’m sure we’ll see some stuff come out and
it’ll be fun (or not) to see what does emerge.
For example, we have already seen news of a delay on the
next round of European aid to Greece and that Europe is officially back in a
recession. We’ve also seen the CIA
director resign due to an affair, right before being scheduled to testify on
Libya. We’ve just learned that the FHA
is likely to need a bailout.
Additionally, we see Israel in a military skirmish that somehow managed
to be postponed until just after the election.
Do you really think any of this couldn’t have been announced or set in
motion before the US election?
Second, and probably more important, what about the fiscal
cliff? The nation needs both parties to address
the fiscal cliff that they created and the self-inflicted recession that could
potentially follow. Unlike the past two
years, Obama and the Senate Democrats have to actually make the effort to work
with the Republicans in the House. Also,
unlike the past two years, the House Republicans have to actually make the
effort to work with Obama and the Senate Democrats. What we’ve seen so far does not inspire
confidence, but I still expect a multi-month extension to get us through to the
new government in January and I’m still thinking 3-6 months. More to come on this topic later, too.
Third, with the election results, gay marriage results, and
marijuana results, one might be tempted to consider America to be more liberal
now than it used to be. The quick answer
for now is that it depends on definitions and demographics, but I’ll table this
one for another day due to the complexity of the question.
Fourth, it’s interesting how the stock market plunged the
day after Obama won and the selloff continued.
Having a shopping list of stocks to buy on weakness multi-year
timeframes and cash to put to work, I don’t mind that so much. It’s as if Wall Street wanted to send a
message to Obama, perhaps a reminder of how powerful they are and/or show of
disappointment in his victory. After
all, while Wall Street was a huge backer of Obama in 2008, they overwhelmingly
supported Romney in 2012. So, what’s the
message?
Next, the more pro-Obama hoopla I see everywhere, the better
I feel about not voting for him. His
pre-election abandonment of the gay rights movement matters, too. Not voting for Obama was already something I
felt great about to begin with given his dismal job performance in his first
term. The Obama cheerleaders doing their
thing not only fail to bother me, but actually make me feel better and suspect
I’ll continue to feel good about it as time passes. At the moment, I see no signs that Obama will
actually change much from last term to this term. No rhetoric thus far has suggested a shift
and he has no political incentive to do so for either himself or the Democrats
as a party. If the Senate went for and
the House stayed with the GOP, we might have seen a shift, but it didn’t happen
due to poor GOP candidate selection in 2010 and 2012 as detailed before. I don’t approve of a second Obama term and
have seen nothing so far that would change my opinion that Obama is a masterful
campaigner and a terrible leader, but it’s a clear win for Obama and it’s time
for the nation to move on because there isn’t controversy like 2000 or 2004 and
we have more important issues to attend to.
So, the fifth and sixth questions are whether the victors
can win gracefully and whether the rest can lose gracefully. For the most part, I think the answer is yes
to both questions, though I have seen plenty of evidence to the contrary on
both questions that I’m not going to link to.
The final question is whether Obama now has a
‘mandate’. The quick answer is no, but
I’ll save that for a future post.
The bottom line is we had four victories for the gay
marriage movement via three successful approvals and a defeated ban while we
also had general elections that effectively gave us two more years of the last
two years. Questions do still linger about
suppressed information, the fiscal cliff, the US’ political future, Wall
Street’s message, whether people can win/lose gracefully, and Obama’s supposed
‘mandate’. We’ll just have to see what
happens.
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