After reading “Ally” a memoir by Michael B. Oren, I was wistfully wishing Romney had won the 2012 election. Oren was the Israeli ambassador to the U.S. from 2009 to 2013. Reading his book reminded me of how much I disliked President Obama’s foreign policy. On Israel, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya and the Arab Spring, I did not like the way America interacted with the Arab World.
Of course, I liked the Bush administration policy much less. The Iraq War was an epic foreign policy failure. I liked the Obama foreign Policy far better than that of Bush 43.
But reading Oren’s book reminded me that Obama was only better, he was not good.
Although foreign policy is necessarily the focus of Oren’s book, as I read, I began to image what would have changed here in America if Obama was defeated in 2012.
It would have been a defeat for the batshit TEA Party/Rush Limbaugh/Roy Moore/Evangelical/racist wing of the Republican Party. Romney and Ryan were RINOs according to the Sarah Palin radical idiot wing of the party.
Romney in power would have been a sane and sensible version of Conservative, but the most important thing Romney would have done is killed any chance that the horrible racist pig now in office could ever be President. Trump could not have run against Romney in 2016 and whoever ran as a Democrat would have run against a moderate version of Conservative.
If Romney served eight years, the despicable, deplorable core of Trumpism would be older and weaker. A Democrat would be at a distinct advantage in 2020 after eight years of Romney. Even if Trump somehow got the 2020 nomination, he would have lost.
By the time 2028 rolled around, Trump would be senile or dead and his most batshit followers would be the same. The Republican candidate of 2024 or 2028 could well have been Paul Ryan. A Romney win in 2012 would have kept Trump and the third-rate losers around him from ever getting near the White House.
In politics, the lesser of two evils is often the best one can get. Romney, whatever his flaws, would have been infinitely better than the vain little coward we have now.
