I was thinking of this last night. We have often said, “I’m going to move to Canada” if so-and-so is elected, and then so-and-so is elected, and we don’t move and the country survives.
Presidents are powerful, but not all-powerful. Palin might try to implement some pretty flaky stuff, but it is unlikely it would get through congress, and even if it did, the impact is generally survivable. Yes, Reagan cut programs for the disadvantaged, and the number of homeless skyrocketed. Bush deregulation of finance industry led to a financial meltdown and a recession that is longer than every other recession we’ve experienced. But we’re surviving. Barely.
Palin will do horrible things, I’m sure. The difference between the rich and the poor will grow much wider. We’ll go on ill-advised adventures in foreign lands. Freedoms will be curbed (a woman’s right not to be a slave incubator for some fetus), ability to criticize the nation, ability to be a Muslim in public, etc. The workforce of the future—the people who will take care of us in our infirmities—will be banned from the nation, and we’ll spend far to much money on trying to keep them out. There will be more homeless and more poverty. We’ll lose access to health care and return to the days where fifty million of us had no health insurance, and there will be so many more preventable deaths. She’ll ignore it all, and say she’s made America a better place. Whatever.
But we’ll survive. We’ll be set back by fifteen years or so, but we’ll survive.