The Republican Presidential slate is finalized with tea party extremist Paul Ryan running as Vice President. Dubbed by the Romney campaign as “America’s Comeback Team” I began to wonder what America do the Republicans want us to come back to?
Do Romney and Ryan want us to come back to the time where women and people of color can’t vote? Yes they do. We see how Republicans are working hard to suppress the votes of people of color and young people in key battleground states such as Florida.
Do Romney and Ryan want us to come back to a time where women didn’t have sovereignty over their own bodies? Yes they do. The Romney/Ryan campaign wants us to go back to days of dark alleys and coat hangers.
Do Romney and Ryan want us to come back to a time where people die from illness because they are dropped from their insurance due to pre-existing conditions? Yes they do because they will repeal the Affordable Healthcare act which makes it illegal to deny insurance coverage due to pre-existing conditions.
Do Romney and Ryan want to us to come back to a day where seniors don’t have access to medical services? Yes they do. The Romney/Ryan plan would end Medicare as we know it and take us back to a day where we didn’t value seniors.
So why did the Republican Party pick Ryan? Many think that Romney didn’t have enough credibility with conservatives because he kept flip-flopping on social issues. Others think that it’s a way to court young voters. I think that it is going to cost them the election.
While it might be true that the conservative base loves Ryan, young people and independent voters, as a collective, will not support him. Those two critical voting groups care too much about equality and justice to vote for such an extremist. For instance, look what happened when Ryan stated that his favorite band was “Rage Against the Machine” in an attempt to relate to a younger demographic.
On August 16 in an op-ed in the Rolling Stone, the guitarist of Rage Against the Machine blasted Ryan for his neoconservative views: “Don't mistake me, I clearly see that Ryan has a whole lotta "rage" in him: A rage against women, a rage against immigrants, a rage against workers, a rage against gays, a rage against the poor, a rage against the environment. Basically the only thing he's not raging against is the privileged elite he's groveling in front of for campaign contributions.” To see this article visit: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/tom-morello-paul-ryan-is-the-embodiment-of-the-machine-our-music-rages-against-20120816
To use the language of young people, Romney picking Ryan is an 'epic fail'.
I hope that on Election Day in November, when we bubble in our votes, we vote for the party that will continue to move our country forward and not the party that will take American backwards. This is summed up by a driving metaphor President Obama once said: “You want to go forward, what do you do? You put it in 'D.' When you go backward, what do you do? You put it in 'R.”
