Moderate gloom

My PCP is gifted with some degree of insight. It is usual to ask people with my medical companion all sorts of questions about depression and "ideation of suicide," when the obvious answers with TN are "of course I am" and "of course I do." She understands this and doesn't waste time on the obvious.

I'd appreciate it if we had politicians who kept my depression and ideations confined to my health. It's fine for progressives to cheer Capt Brylcreem's selection of Lt. Brylcreem (or is it the other way around?). But they might win. Worse, they might win both houses of Congress. Want to know what happens then? Think 2005, when an insane Congress tried to legislate a dead woman back to life; when the same government let thousands of people in the Gulf die, mainly I guess because they weren't part of the one percent.

So now what? We'd get a president who would still say anything to anybody to create the appearance of being liked, and a rabid ideologue (running the show like Cheney?) who seems to relish the idea of millions of older, poorer, Americans dying in ditches in order to give the one percent another tax break and the military another reason to solve problems by throwing money at them.

Reality check #1. Healthcare reimbursement is how I make my living. "Vouchers" only work if you, like Ryan, haven't got the faintest idea how much American healthcare costs. I do. If we changed nothing, many Americans will die because the dirty little secret is that Medicare still doesn't cover it all. All Ryan's ideas do is increase the casualty list; exponentially. Possibly Congress would get that idea if they got their health covered like everyone else.

Reality check #2. In the Tea Party dream world, the people they cheat of their Social Security benefits and Medicare coverage can just go out and get jobs. Too bad that the business folk who write their cheques have also created the employment world I have anticipated for years. Careers are for people between 25 and 45. Everyone else can shovel shit until they die or just drop dead now. The road to the Tea Party heaven will be paved with the dead bodies of their neighbours.

Reality check #3. I am heartily sick of financial experts prattling on about how one needs $1million (or is it $2 million?), without the least idea how delusional they are. Usually I detest Internet comment pages, but one remark I saw, in response to yet another such story, cut through the noise. It ran, more or less: "I make $10.50 an hour, the most I've ever made. I'm about to lose my apartment. I can't afford food. Will someone please tell me how I'm supposed to get a million dollars for retirement?" The experts are silent when the 90 percent speak.

I'll tell you what will happen if the Brylcreem Boys win and get enough votes in Congress to advance their insane agenda. Americans, the older and the poor of any age, will be dying, just as the Tea Party wants, in tens of thousands. Most won't "drop dead:" they'll die slowly in pain and want. Those caregivers who remember their primary mission will be prevented from fulfilling it by politicians, lawyers and MBAs. The current demographic fantasy, that we'll all live to be 95, will evaporate like mist at dawn. The USA will have the distinction of reversing its life expectancy more and faster than has ever happened before. That's a mark to shoot for, isn't it?

And I don't think Americans have the spine for real revolution anymore. When the one percent wins, it will take generations of repression grow enough spine to resist.

In the 1970s, it was said that insanity was the one sane response to an insane world. It's still true. I'm not thrilled with the alternative, but it is past insanity to consider supporting a pair of arrogant sociopaths for a job ten times more responsible than either has ever held. If that be madness, make the most of it.

Be vewy vewy afwaid

In this house, my spouse operates on a higher wonk factor than I. And she, like a couple of characters from my remote past, is inclined to begin her conversations with an ellipsis. Thus I was momentarily confused when she began to mention Kerry Healey whilst we watched News Hour speculation about Romney's possible running mates.

After I had her rewind a little, I grasped the point, which is a good one. Lt. Governor Healey was a cipher in the Romney administration. When she ran to succeed him, without her former chief's support or even interest, the game plan became obvious.

Romney wanted to be a one-man show. This, my spouse thought, is imprinted on the man's DNA and is not likely to change just because POTUS is the prize this time out.  She thought Romney will only be happy with a VP who is as much a cipher as Healey. As a result, one can wash out numbers of potential VP candidates being bruited about by the Punditocracy. The VP candidate will be literally and figuratively in the shadows. Win or lose, that person can expect consignment to the Limbo where the shades of most American VP candidates and VPs dwell.

For the most part, American Vice Presidents have been nonentities. It was not until one of the nonentities, Truman, had greatness shoved in his face that this began to change. Even so, see if you can remember losing VP candidates since Truman without Googling any of them.

No ambitious Republican, considering that history and the example of Kerry Healey, can do anything but consider Romney's nod a political kiss of death.