Odds

Here's Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog on the prospects for the country over the next four years:

I think Obama's second term will be gridlocked. I also think that's a hell of a lot better outcome than a Romney term, which will result in the continued (in fact, accelerated) dismantling of the twentieth century, a nationalization of what's been done by governors such as Scott Walker and Rick Scott. And don't get me started on the Supreme Court.

(Unfortunately, any short-range plan to address this situation involving phrases like “coming to their senses” is simply based on some combination of inattentiveness and wishful thinking.)

I think that the argument we'll hear a lot from the Sensible People as the summer drags on is that we should elect Romney because "he deserves a chance." (I fully expect to find that rationale prominently featured in the inevitable Romney endorsement by the ever more right-wing Newspaper of Record for Oregon.)

But Obama's dodgy record on the economy, for example, doesn't simply float out there, without the political context of a four-year Republican campaign of intransigence, sabotage, and shameless dishonesty. To say that Romney "deserves a chance" is to treat political consequence as if it were a coin toss. It's the logic of the innumerate bettor who figures that, after a long string of "heads," it's time to double down on "tails." It must be due. What the hell. The next toss could be the jackpot. Even if it's a double-headed nickel.

Charlie Pierce also has a bit to say on that subject today -- about the increasingly American conviction that doing something must be better than doing nothing. Or, if you prefer, that even a sucker bet is preferable to standing pat. Or, to bring it full circle, that even wiping out the achievements of a century would still be better than gridlock.

CP also has a thing or two to say about the inner rot of the American Dream that has brought it down from "working hard, making a decent living, and providing a better life for your kids" to "winning Powerball."