What is your fear of the results of the upcoming election?

As for me, I fear the future Supreme Court nominees under Romney. He wants more justices like Scalia.

My fear? Romney or Obama becomes president.

What worry? Most of that stuff already happened. I don’t think Obama can ruin the economy; Bush already did that, and the GOP is doing its best to keep it ruined. The tax code is already favorable to the superrich and large corporations. Everyone else – especially people under 35 – already holds the check. The major thing you have to worry about is the continuation of the status quo: Republikans will keep the economy ruined until they get what they want, which is to be put in charge.

I’ll probably just vote for myself. I live in NYC, so there is no point in voting for Obama to vote against Romney.

My fears were that Santorum, Bachman, or Perry would become president, so I’m kind of chillin’ now.

My only real fear is that nothing is done to take some of the money out of politics. I mean I don’t hide the fact I’m very pro-Obama and against most Republican stances… but the continued flooding of big money into our system is even worse for us than Republicans imo (especially since half of their platform comes from that big money).

Romney’s foreign policy views are actually terrifying and do not get nearly enough attention in the press, since (unlike domestic policy) this is where a president’s power actually matters.

Romney has opposed New Start, the treaty that reduces our and Russia’s nuclear arsenals and has greatly helped to thaw our relations. He has waffled on the Arab Spring and has indicated that we might have been better off supporting dictators like Mubarak instead of the democratic resistance. His saber-rattling with Iran is probably just that, but his views on Israel and Palestine—probably goaded on by his billionaire backer Sheldon Adelson—are stupid and horrifying. And Romney’s foreign policy advisors are almost all holdovers from the Bush administration.

You can criticize Obama for his use of drones, for not prosecuting Bush people for torture, for not pulling us out of Afghanistan fast enough. But he has overseen a drastic decrease in civilian casualties, and he navigated the Arab Spring deftly, without starting any wars and without causing any huge backlash against us by Muslim countries. Take a moment to imagine the damage another administration like Bush’s could cause on the international scene.

Also, you people better goddamn vote.

I’m voting, but ultimately I fear nothing as I can’t really control it. I have plenty of things I can control keeping me up at night.

@Qingu, I would really rather not imagine four more years like Bush’s administration.

That some of the few TV shows I like may be interrupted by election coverage BS.

After that? Who knows?

Give the rich all the money they want and watch the economy implode forever, then they will be begging for socialism to bail them out.Sorry folks but that’s what it will take to get your way.

My fear is that someone will win the election…

My fear is that Romney might pick Sarah Palin as his running mate and we’d have to deal with that again.
In reality, though, someone’s gonna have to get elected, we’re gonna have to deal with them for 4 years, most people will dislike them, and then we’ll have another election. It’s the circle of life…er….politics.

My fear is that Mitt Romney will win the election & will then proceed to dismantle Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, & unemployment. Some of Obama’s stances are not things that I particularly approve of, but over-all (for me any way) he is much less problematic than is Romney. Romney seems to not care about anyone other than the wealthiest of Americans, & he seems to be willing to say anything or do anything that will enhance his chances of getting elected as President. (*except release his tax returns)

I fear that things will stay the same. Stagnation sucks.

I fear that Democratic voters’ complacency will cost Obama the election, Romney will win, and human rights will take several giant steps backward.

@augustlan – that is my fear, too.

I fear the House will stay in Republican hands and when Obama wins, they will continue to do everything they can to make him fail, even if it means taking every last one of us down with the ship.

@dalepetrie as I live and breath! Howdy stranger.

Hi, Dale! I was hoping you’d show up as we got closer to election time. :)

Dale. Yeah.

@TheIntern55, wouldn’t Palin be a better choice than someone like Paul, Pawlenty, or Portman? She would make it hard for Romney to win. Oh yeah- Republicans are so anti-Obama they’ll vote for ANYONE else, and we could (gasp!) wind up with President Romney and VP Palin. Please, Please, please don’t
let that happen!

Hey everyone, good to be here. If you come across any questions you feel would benefit from my input, feel free to drop me a line. Last election cycle I was not nearly as busy as I’ve been lately, hence I may have seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth, but rest assured, I have always been here, lurking in the shadows.

To get back on topic, I’m not too concerned that Romney will win, I’m as confident in his re-election as I was in his election. I also don’t think that if he did win, that Republicans would also retain the house and gain control of the Senate, which is what would really need to happen for us to lose much of the progress Obama made. We wouldn’t go forward, but we wouldn’t backslide on many of the changes he’s made. Yes, we would have many of the bad status quo problems, and yes the rich would continue to get richer, but he’d just continue to sell out our interests to the highest bidder, a practice even Obama’s administration is often guilty of.

As I see it, no matter what happens, the pendulum swings back. I’m not worried about “the end of America”, quite frankly the current state of our government could be replaced entirely by something much better in my opinion. As I see it, the Tea Party is indicative of what will happen, it is never going to be nor has it ever been a major force, but it is a major catalyst for change, just not in the way people envisioned it. The Tea Party was nothing more than wealthy interests manipulating anger at the status quo, and leveraging it to move the Republican party even further into the pockets of corporate interests. Ironically, those who fell for the Tea Party believed they were voting for “a different kind of change”, not realizing that the only thing that would change would be the level of belligerence, exacerbating the gridlock which made them angry in the first place. History seems to show that people can be fooled for no more than say 10 years, and we’re 4 years into the movement. So, the rebuke of the Tea Party will come if not in the 2012 elections, in 2014, 2016 or 2018 at the latest.

The real test is whether Republicans will learn their lesson. At a time when the country in general is becoming more politically progressive, Republicans have dug in their heels, and have clung stubbornly to extreme conservatism. Their inflexibility via an inability to roll with the changes can lead to nothing but more and more gridlock, more extremes and less compromise. Eventually people are going to have enough of the “my way or the highway” do nothing lawmaking, and will clamor for more moderates to come back into the fray. The sooner the rejection of the Tea Party, the better for the Republican party. If they continue to make gains and are emboldened, they will continue to become more obstructionist, more conservative and their platform will become more inflexible and intractable.

What I’m saying is, there’s a silver lining…short of Mitt wining, Republicans keeping the House AND taking the Senate (and even if that DID happen), this inflexibility will result in either a more moderate Republican party, or a more moderate party to replace the Republicans. Losing badly could be good for the Republicans, good in a way that could ultimately be worse than if they made big wins.

It always seems scary, and winning/losing definitely matters, especially when some major gains have been made recently and are still quite fragile, but ultimately our political system is a give and take, it will continue to swing back and forth, and we will continue to progress, the real question is how quickly we will make this progress. It is understandable to want it all and want it now and not accept anything less, but things take time, they always will and it will never be perfect. So, we’ll all do what we can and try to be more zen about it. After all, we survived 8 years of W, and Republicans have survived 4 years of Obama, and yet the world hasn’t ended. Things we don’t like have happened, things we’ve wanted to happen haven’t, and that’s just how it is, the best we can do is fight as hard as we can for what we believe in, and not fear uncertainty, because if we’ve learned anything in these last 4 years, it’s that being paralyzed by uncertainty does nothing but make things take longer.