Virtually nothing of substance occurs at the quadrennial Republican or Democratic Party conventions; in reality they’re just televised coronations designed by each party’s strategists to fire up their respective bases. Converting the few potential voters who remain uncommitted seems little more than an afterthought; those persuasive efforts can be handled far more efficiently by the super PACs each campaign uses to ceaselessly, shrilly and often nonsensically demonize their opposition.

Outwardly, this week’s Republican National Convention is similar to the Democratic pep rally that’ll start in seven days: Both are slickly choreographed infomercials designed to re-energize those who’ve already pledged their allegiance. But the ulterior motive to the GOP’s ongoing Tampa powwow is to continue encouraging, manufacturing and cultivating the mass national amnesia that will be required in order to elect Mitt Romney America’s next commander in chief.

Claiming America’s troubled economy should be fixed by now and, because it hasn’t been, should be turned over to the same people responsible for the poorly planned wars of choice, unfettered deregulation, unfunded mandates and trickle-down economics, which put the country in such desperate straits in the first place requires an electorate that’s either exceptionally gullible or extremely forgetful, but preferably both.

Those repelled by the usual belligerent, intolerant, misogynistic Republican platform that’s tough on immigrants, abortion and gays while pandering to greed, guns and God should be thankful the party’s wealth-creating, job-eliminating standard-bearer is perceived as being so exceptionally malleable by many ardent conservatives. Some disgruntled reactionaries so distrust the chameleon-like candidate who’s changed his mind so frequently (and on so many issues) they may stay home this November, inexplicably fearing that, if elected, Romney might reinvent himself yet again, embrace compromise and bipartisanship, and govern as a ”“ gasp! ”“ moderate.

The radical, all-too-influential right has created such an all-consuming, virulent loathing for America’s current president that the fervor being exhibited this week by the willfully ignorant GOP faithful would likely be at least as passionate regardless of the identity of their party’s nominee. And there would be no question about the sincerity, beliefs and intentions of erstwhile aspiring chief executives Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, or Rick Perry, each of whom would be in his own way far more odious to rational people than is the current version of Mr. Romney.

Even given the FOX News-fueled foaming hatred of the incumbent, right-wingers desperately need ordinarily logical Americans to experience a mass loss of rationality and/or catch a case of collective forgetfulness if they are to win back the White House. Deficits and the national debt won’t shrink while those in charge increase spending on overseas military intervention and cut taxes for the wealthy. But the “Anyone but Barack Obama” cabal didn’t become true believers by thoughtfully considering actual facts.

As Nobel Prize-winning economist/New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote earlier this year, nearly all the net job losses that occurred on the current administration’s watch took place in the first few months of 2009, before any new policies had time to take effect. In addition, overall employment has been held down during Obama’s presidency thanks largely to mass layoffs of teachers and other local government employees. But 70 percent of such job eliminations took place in states where Republicans have long held (think Texas) or recently gained (Wisconsin) control of both the legislative and executive branches of government.

The GOP would also prefer Americans overlook that Congressional Republicans have done everything possible to tie the president’s hands since he took office. Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, the upper chamber’s minority leader and obstructionist in chief, publicly stated his party’s top goal was to limit Mr. Obama to one term. Had a Democrat made a similar vow when a Republican occupied the White House, it would have been labeled treason by the right, but for today’s GOP and the plutocrats to whom they’re beholden, putting the party’s fortunes ahead of the country’s is just business as usual.

Claiming Democrats respect average Americans and are taking the high road while their opponents are playing dirty pool would be disingenuous; their clear attempts to foment fear of a Romney presidency make it plain the Obama campaign doesn’t think much more of America’s collective intelligence than the GOP does.

But the Republican ticket once again consists of a socially awkward, pedigreed child of privilege (though one far wealthier and somewhat less inarticulate than George W. Bush) and an ambitious, saber-rattling right-wing ideologue (albeit one far more youthful and photogenic than Dick Cheney) who never served in the military himself. Even more eerily, the ideas they’re trumpeting and policies they’re advocating are nearly identical to those which created America’s current depressed economic status. It’s becoming increasingly clear that the arrogant, entitled oligarchs who own and control the GOP aren’t just depending on distraction, deception and deceit for the 2012 elections; they’re also doubling down on dumb.

— Andy Young is an English teacher in York County. Full disclosure: He himself is not personally acquainted with any actual oligarchs or plutocrats.