New Politics (in progress)

It cannot be denied that for most of us, if not all of us, a sort of default political orientation is created at a very early age. Something like "The French Revolution was good (or bad)". At an early age we imagine ourselves on one side or other of some imagined historical barricade. Not so much imagined, perhaps, as we fall or slither into one pool of many possible repositories of human experience, find ourself there by some forced and childlish narrative choice. Then we never leave. And we can never make meaningful contact with the others who have fallen into different pools. It is very non-productive. The fact that I think it was a good idea for Cromwell to execute Charles II, say, and some other person thinks it was an abomination, may be a source of interesting cocktail party chat, but it has nothing to do with the collective problems that this person and I (along with millions of others) have to address. It is a pity that we have to struggle with this handicap.

Why Romney Is Unlikeable (and why it doesn't matter)

Romney is unlikeable for two reasons.

The first reason is that the fact that he is saying anything at any particular point in time has no predictive value as to (a) what he believes now (if anything), or (b) what he will say in the future. That is to say, he is a liar. Or, to put it more nicely, he, if elected, would be the first truly post-modern president of the USA -- a president who understands that words have no inherent value and that they can mean just want you want them to mean. (Oddly enough, and this comments makes me want to vomit, a post-modern president might just be what the Surreal States of America needs at this time to preside over this portion of its long and rather dangerous decline.)

The second reason is that he palpably doesn't give a damn about anybody else, certainly not anyone outside his family. This impression radiates from him constantly and it is the key reason why people don't like him.

In the longer-run, if he is elected, the first factor will swallow the second. Like in the novel 1984, people will avoid remembering anything of the past. The fact that Romney is unlikeable will disappear in the impossible to describe haze of his shape-shifting persona. War is Peace. Love is Hate. Up is Down.

Romney will be the changing and immaterial flicker on the wall, rather in manner of the shallow but ubiquitious host from a TV reality show, as the USA continues its long decline.