I am from India, but I follow US politics very closely, I have no stakes in the elections as Americans do, but like many others around the world, what got my attention was the Bush era, and the Iraq war.
In the current elections, people have claimed that there is not much difference between Obama and Romney. There have been arguments in these and other blogs on why this is not so, that focuses on specific policies.
My own take is different.
For the past 4 years, since the inauguration and even before that, Republicans have decided that truth really does not exist. Whatever they make up and force down Fox News and then through the equivalences of the mainstream media IS the truth. A victory in 2012 has been their goal since the crash of Lehman brothers, and they have cynically run propaganda for the past 4 years.
It is precisely for this reason, that I hope Obama wins. The elections should not even be this close - that it is, shows the gullibility of Fox News watchers and is also a reflection of the media's abdication of their role.
When polls were trending in Obama's direction in Oct 2008, and the financial crisis was starting, a few of these thugs starting using the term "The Obama Depression". It was a foreteller of events to come. Frank Luntz and Matt Drudge and Roger Ailes have their world covered. Trying to pin a depression that had started in Oct 2008, under the watch of George Bush, on Obama was an enormous act of chutzpah.
By Jan 2009, the rage and hate machine was in full swing. The media tagged right along, enabling this relentless propagandizing. The unpopular TARP was deliberately pinned on Obama, even though it was signed by Bush on Oct, 3 2008.
With the Affordable Health Care Act, Sarah Palin, the dumbest politician in the USA, accused Obama of creating death panels by law. Millions of Americans believed her and that Act is still unpopular, even though people have no idea what is not to like.
Glenn Beck called Obama a racist. They cheered right along.
Throughout this year, Mitt Romney has continued to lie about a supposed "apology tour" that Obama took abroad after inauguration. The accusation was blatant - that Obama was treasonous.
They have lied repeatedly, that Obama somehow caused the depression retroactively; that he increased the deficit more than any other President; that he increased the size of the federal government, none of which is true.
They brought on the debt ceiling crisis and then blamed him right around for the credit downgrade that followed.
And they have been wrong in every one of their predictions. They said runaway inflation! Greek style crisis! None of that has happened.
These men (it is mostly men) have such a low respect for their own audience, that they have decided that they can lie and manipulate them into voting against a center-left moderate President.
If Romney wins, it would mean truth is dead; and it is all propaganda in the USA.
If Romney wins, persistent lying would have paid off. Saying 47% of a country are deadbeats would have paid off. This man has nothing to show for, no decency and no belief in his own fellow humans.
I hope America stays sane.