Emergent Chaos: Romney/Ryan for America!
We here at Emergent Chaos have long been frustrated with the Obama Administration. Their failure to close Guantanamo, their failure to prosecute war crimes including torture, their choice to murder American citizens (never mind without due process), their invocation of the state secrets privilege, their persecution of whistleblowers, their TSA running rampant, the list of disappointments runs long.
But we’ve been waiting to see real evidence of a decisive and predictable leadership style from Mitt. We’ve been waiting for a real and demonstrated commitment to civil liberties. Now, with the combination of Paul Ryan and Clint Eastwood, we think he’s over the top.
We know that a vote for Romney/Ryan may leave many folks wondering what they’re voting for. Are they voting for mandatory health care for all that Romney passed in Massachusetts, leading the state to legalize gay marriage or are they voting for the Romney who rails against his plan being taken national with Obamacare? Or are they voting to put Ryan and his voucher-ization of Medicaid one heartbeat away from the Presidency? It’s rare that we see this kind of chaos emerge at the top of a ticket.
Chaos like that is close to our hearts, and four years ago, that was enough to win us over.
But stakes are higher today, and we’ve seen a scary degree of staying on the latest message from Mitt and his advisors. So we needed a high-stakes decision, one taken at a moment of obvious gravity and impact, one taken at the very top, to really help us judge if the velvet glove has forged Willard Mitt Romney into the sort of man we want commanding the most powerful military ever seen on the planet.
Romney decided he wanted a surprise at the convention, and chose Clint Eastwood. Now, as a rock-ribbed, gun-totin’, pro-abortion, pro-gay-marriage, pro-ERA Republican, we think he’s the sort of libertarian Republican who should be making the attendees’ days. He’s the sort of Republican who should be addressing the convention, hearkening back to the big-tent party that Ronald Reagan led.
But, traditional thinking in politics has become that conventions are tightly managed. That’s why RNC Chairman Reince Priebus changed the rules on the convention floor to lock out Ron Paul’s delegates. He wanted to show that the GOP stands fast in its commitment to the rule of law and the importance of democracy, not running a convention where anyone who just happened to have committed delagates can show up and hope to win their party’s nomination.
That’s the sort of strategic thinking that led Romney’s most senior advisors to not ask Clint for a rehersal. And, apparently, their commitment to free speech led them to just toss him a list of talking points and not worry about it. (No, really, go read it, and consider what it means about decision making.) And that’s the sort of emergent chaos that we can’t help but nervously endorse.
So months from now, if you want chaos in the financial markets or chaos on the international stage like we saw chaos on the convention stage, the choice is clear. If Romney/Ryan can let chaos like that into their moment to shine, just think about the chaos that will happen when they’re blindsided. So if you want more leadership like that, if you want to live in interesting times, vote Romney/Ryan. We’re not sure what we’ll get, but we’re confident it will be exciting.