Ohio Poised to Save Us from RomneyWorld

By Larry Durstin

It shouldn’t take the return of Howard Beale, The Mad Prophet of the Airwaves from the apocalyptic 1970s movie “Network,” to tell us that if Mitt Romney wins the election, America is in a lot of trouble.

That’s why the task of laying out what the landscape of RomneyWorld would be like falls to your humble servant: Oh, what a plutocratic paradise it would be, one with just enough theocratic lunacy mixed in to give the embattled masses, at best, a terminal case of the willies, and at worst, a one-way ticket to Dickensian squalor via the town square of 17th Century Salem.

For those unfamiliar with the litany of potential dangers of a Romney presidency, here’s a short list that should make lower- and middle-class folks as nervous as, well, a Mormon in a Black Liberation church: more tax cuts for the rich and more deregulation of corporations and Wall Street; a death sentence for unions and workers’ rights in general; the criminalizing of abortion and certain types of contraception; “papers please” and self-deportation of immigrants; the gutting of Medicare, Medicaid and the so-called safety net; the privatization of Social Security; at least one or two reactionary Supreme Court appointments eager to don powdered periwigs; the defunding of public education and the slashing of Pell Grants for college students; the debunking of science, replacing it with disjointed ruminations on what role God’s will plays in rapes and how the female body can actually stop conception with some kind of magic juice; upscale downsizing and a pipeline of American jobs to China; the return of neocon foreign policy with its blind support of the Israeli hawks; health care reform replaced by a dependence on the kindness of strangers; less consumer protection and more laissez-faire; and – maybe just maybe – in line with LDS teaching, administrative mandates declaring magic underwear must be worn and Missouri must be recognized as the site of the Garden of Eden.

In RomneyWorld, the ideal man would be John Galt, the hero of Goddess-of-Greed Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged,” a super-genius who invented a machine that makes electricity out of air, but when the government attempts to have it used for the good of others, Galt creates his own city where elites don’t have to bother with catering to working-class bottom feeders. The ideal woman, of course, would be Ann Romney herself, a spookily devoted stay-at-home mom who dutifully raises a well-scrubbed brood of automatons and who, like Inflatable Amy, never has a headache.

But have no fear, my fellow Americans, for standing between you and this nightmarish scenario is the at-times maligned yet unfailingly noble state of Ohio, the heart of it all. That’s right, the Buckeye State is poised to save America and, by most accounts, appears to be up to the task And no, this readiness has not sprung from some Facebook flash-mob, Tweet-of-the-day happenstance. Uh, uh. What we’re talking about here is true Midwestern grit – blood, sweat and organization.

When the newly elected Ohio governor John Kasich joined forces with his Republican-dominated legislature in early 2011 and jammed through Senate Bill 5, which essentially eliminated collective bargaining for public sector unions, a broad coalition of unions, progressives and average working folks responded with a vengeance. Nearly 1.3 million signatures (almost three times as many as needed) were gathered to put an initiative to repeal SB5 on the November 2011 ballot. The result: a landslide (61-39) victory for unions, an accomplishment comparable to the 1958 rejection of the Republican’s nefarious attempt to turn Ohio into a “right-to-work” state.

Following decades of decline, much of it due to the obscene collaboration with the Republicans of turncoat Reagan Democrats, the left-for-dead union movement was able to organize a coalition that produced a resounding victory. Well, the electoral machinery put together for that effort is still in place this year and it’s ready to flex its muscles again to defeat the Pinocchio-nosed Romney and Ohio’s Republican senatorial candidate, the Pee Wee Herman-resembling Josh Mandel.

But perhaps the most significant edge that Obama has in Ohio comes as a result of his bold and brave move to “bail out” the auto industry, which directly or indirectly is responsible for one in eight jobs in the state. It was a gamble that could have blown up in Obama’s face. Instead, saving the auto industry is perhaps the signature achievement of his first term and has given him momentum in the Midwest battleground states. And if it turns out that the beleaguered auto industry and its revved-up supporters spearhead an Obama victory, that’s as it should be. Obama deserves it for his courage to risk his presidency on an unpopular stance and the “mad-as-hell” unions, progressives, minorities, educators, young people, women’s groups, gays, immigrants and hard-working everyday folks deserve it because their hearts are pure and their cause is righteous.

So here we are, teetering on the brink of a disastrous descent into RomneyWorld as the nation turns its hopeful eyes to Ohio for deliverance. Can we make it happen? Just ask two recent Obama surrogates who visited Ohio for a Parma rally. One, Bill Clinton, saw the Buckeye State put him over the top and into the White House in 1992, while the other, Bruce Springsteen, saw his career rocket to superstardom in no small part due to the backing in the mid-1970s  of Cleveland’s  legendary rock radio station WMMS. And now, in the face of the GOP’s unconscionable attempts at widespread voter suppression, should our fair state seal the deal for Obama, it will be a truly historical example of “Never have so many owed so much to so few.”

 

Larry Durstin is an independent journalist who has covered politics and sports for a variety of publications and websites over the past 20 years. He was the founding editor of the Cleveland Tab and an associate editor at the Cleveland Free Times. Durstin has won 12 Ohio Excellence in Journalism awards, including six first places in six different writing categories. LarryDurstinATyahoo.com

 

 

 

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