Two Visions

The announcement that the Romney campaign has settled on Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as its choice for Vice President confirms my evolving belief that this election is less a referendum on the current state of the macroeconomy, and more another incarnation of a very old trope of American politics: the Battle for the Soul of the Country. I don't intend this to sound melodramatic; these Battles need to be fought from time to time, perhaps more often than they've been.

The most recent example was in 1996. Following the election of President Clinton in 1992, young upstarts in the Republican Party seized power from the old guard, and mounted a very successful midterm campaign in 1994, which led many to believe that the pendulum swing away from Mr Clinton signaled a shift of the median voter back toward the staid Republicanism of the 1980s. Thus the reelection of Mr Clinton in 1996 served as a mandate for his radical centrism, at least inasmuch as it contrasted with the radically regressive economics of his opponent, Senator Dole of Kansas.

The parallels between 1996 and 2012 are striking. While Senator Obama, as he then was, didn't seek to unseat an incumbent, the strength and cohesion of the machine he challenged made his task similar. Like Mr Clinton, Mr Obama offered an alternative to insider politics and the economics of division. The bitter and thorough revulsion of the establishment led to a overwhelmingly reactionary midterm election, manifest in Mr Obama's case by the rise of the Tea Party, the faux-populist creation of Charles and David Koch and other big-business libertarians.


Where we as a nation are to go from here has become the issue in this election. Mr Romney represents a return to the prerogatives of another era, one in which what was best for the captains of industry is best for the nation and common individuals are merely factors of production, rather than full citizens. Mr Romney summed up his vision of opportunity in America concisely when he advised that enterprising young people should start businesses, and should borrow $10,000 from their parents if necessary. The America to whom Mr Romney speaks is comprised solely of those for whom this is a natural option. None other count. By his brutal calculus, those who need government assistance are by definition unworthy of it. The selection of Mr Ryan, a devotee of Ayn Rand who advocates the virtual elimination of the social safety net, is a clear affirmation that Mr Romney speaks only to established power. 'This is your country,' he whispers soothingly, 'don't let one of them take it from you.'

Like Mr Clinton, Mr Obama is a centrist whose policies have broad appeal, mitigated mostly by their association with him, but who's been painted as the 'other' in an effort to discredit him. The cynical appeal to baseless fear is an old part of the political toolkit, but its deployment against Mr Obama evokes a particularly dark and sinister chapter of our shared history. 

The story of Barack Obama is a complete horror story to the Mitt Romneys of the world, and many of those to whom he speaks. A smart, ambitious kid, born behind the socioeconomic eight-ball, leverages his talent to achieve the power to do great things. In Mr Romney's fantasy, kids such as the young Barack Obama settle for less: maybe assembling cars in Detroit, maybe even selling insurance, leaving the running of things to the children of those who previously ran things. The great hope that Mr Obama represents to the rest of us is that people who start out with less needn't be constrained by their circumstances. For all that Mr Obama has not accomplished in the last three and a half years, this hope remains alive.

This Battle is what this election is about. A vision of America in which the successful are worshipped because of their inherent superiority, and everyone else knows their place, in which our sick and our old are anchors on the great ship of prosperity, in which we are all left on our own, to fend for ourselves, or a vision in which opportunity is fairly distributed, achievement is honestly attained, and one's destination is not solely a function of one's starting position.

The selection of Mr Ryan pegs Mr Romney to a very specific agenda. The advantage to voters of this selection is clearly the contrast it will illuminate in the positions of Mr Romney and Mr Obama.