While filling in as guest host for Rush Limbaugh on Thursday, Mark Steyn said the 2012 election will be the most consequential in our lifetime because it will determine whether Obamacare can potentially be repealed. If Obama wins reelection, said Steyn, the third wave of statism – the first wave was FDR’s New Deal  and second wave LBJ’s Great Society – will be complete and America will never be able to pull itself out of a socialist welfare swamp.

“So this November -- they always say this every time, this, each election is the most consequential election of our lifetimes,” said Steyn. “But this is it. This is it.”

Early in the broadcast, Steyn argued that the relationship between state and citizen will permanently change if Obamacare is not repealed and this is why the 2012 election is the most consequential.

“This is the final victory of big government statism,” said Steyn. “If you look at FDR and Social Security in the ‘30s, if you look at LBJ and Great Society in the ‘60s and we now have the third wave, and the job will be done.”

Steyn added that once the “third wave” statism takes place, it will be virtually impossible to prevent the United States from becoming a statist-oriented country:

Said Steyn: “You can walk around carrying your Constitution, and talking about your First Amendment, and your Second Amendment. And the Statue of Liberty will still exist, it will still be there standing in the harbor and all the rest of it, but in practical terms, we will be a big government statist swamp.”