Saturday, July 14, 2012

Recommendation for Romney: Taking Civil Defense Seriously

The recent events after the Derecho in DC and several swing states (Virginia, Ohio) point to one possible area where Romney can distinguish himself from both Obama AND Bush.

Here's your talking point:
Obama and Bush have spent godawful amounts of money on the supposed War on Terror and 'Homeland Security'.
Why the hell is it that the state of actual civil defense is so wretched?  Why is it that it takes two weeks to get power on near the nation's capital?
Why is it that a solar storm on the scale of the 1989 storm that took down power for so many Canadians would hammer us so badly and for so long today?  To say nothing of a more 1859-ish solar event?
Why is it that government acts as if it doesn't give a damn about the fate of ordinary Americans?
Why is it that government avoids so strongly the things that governments going all the way back to Joseph in Egypt are ACTUALLY GOOD AT, instead choosing to do the sorts of things that it to put it mildly, has a very large competitive disadvantage at?

The population I believe gets this at a subconscious gut level---witness the large sales of all things post apocalyptic.  Frame it in terms of values and organizational competence and I believe you've got a theme you can add to your message that actually will work for Romney.  Even the Mormon identity works congruently with the theme, since such preparedness and provision is a key point of their theology and praxis.

2 comments:

bdoran said...

If you understand that the American government and Ruling Class hate their own Ruled countrymen their policies make sense at last.

Someone who's making a career as a DoS [State] employee/contractor told me the European governments -French, German- don't hate their respective populations and hence have generally better government. I pointed out that the American Government DOES hate Americans and the mystery he was groping for was solved. Facepalm!!

Jehu said...

Bdoran,
Campaigning on NOT hating the American population ought to be a winning platform. Of course talking about civil defense and reliability of infrastructure is 'dog whistling' in a sense on that key point. 'Tar and feathers' would be the more straightforward appeal.