WAITING FOR THE USEFUL IDIOTS TO STOP BEING SO USEFUL
In response to all the Bain attacks on Mitt Romney, Andrew Sullivan declares that Romney could still lose, because of what voters are now hearing about him:
But what makes it so dangerous to Romney, it seems to me, is that the Bain Brahmin didn't just fire thousands of working class people in restructuring and in closing companies. He made a fucking unimaginable fortune doing it. That's the issue. Other Republicans can speak about the need for free markets in a sluggish economy. But with Romney, we have a singular example of someone who made a quarter of a billion dollars by firing the white middle and working class in droves in ways that do not seem designed to promote growth or efficiency, but merely to enrich Bain.
To which I say: White working-class Republican voters, if this upsets you, what the hell do you think you've been voting for for the past thirty (forty? forty-five?) years?
Over at The New Republic, William Galston lists several reasons why Bain is trouble for Romney and could "kill his candidacy":
The only thing surprising about this issue is how late in the day it took center-stage. After all, an increasing number of blue-collar workers have become Republicans or Republican-leaning independents. The Tea Party movement is hardly sympathetic to Wall Street and the financial sector. And a key element of the Republican base -- small business -- has long regarded the corporate/establishment wing of the party with suspicion. As a populist whipping-boy, Romney is straight out of central casting.
Yes, but all three of those groups love the GOP regardless of the actual consequences. Small business owners would rather throw in their lot with Republicans and the Chamber of Commerce than with those horrible overregulating socialist Democrats -- even if big business gets nearly all of the benefit from the GOP alliance. White working-class voters get patriotic wars, abortion restrictions, and small tax cuts from the GOP, as well as a heartland-vs.-elites culture war that's exciting and inspirational, and don't seem to care that the economy that emerges from Republican rule never really serves their needs. And don't get me started on the tea party, which, as I've said many times, hates big business and Wall Street only for allying with (ick! pthui!) government, and ascribes 100% of the blame for the financial meltdown to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
These voting blocs have never identified the real enemy before. Why should we think they're going to get it now?
7 comments:
It's a little late in the day for the 2-legged Conservative morons, otherwise known as "lunch," to start questioning where the cannibal's meals keep coming from.
They haven't minded being dined on for decades, so why start now?
I'm going to go slightly contrarian here...
The thing that has been sustaining Romney is the perception of him as "electable". He's not the all-but-guaranteed nominee because most Republicans like him or think he's the best candidate; he's there because they see him looking more or less presidential and able to project a moderate enough image to win in the general.
The most damaging thing this video could do to him in the primaries is make him look vulnerable in the general--which would eliminate the only real rationale for voting for him. Probably won't happen, but I wouldn't rule it out.
I think one thing to keep in mind is that up until recently the "white middle class" that voted republican were voting against their interests but it wasn't clear how that was--they always thought they were voting to screw the other guys: gun grabbers, gays, atheists, black people. The economy has tanked for those people (white middle class people) in some horrendously obvious ways. The right can still pull out the same storyline that moved desperate people from desperation to fascism before (that is: the enemy within, jews, blacks, gays, whatever) but they can't move people with those attacks without also confronting the economic issues and offering an economic payback.
People without jobs, whose kids can't get into college, who are looking at their own parents moving back into their houses (or moving into their parents houses) won't vote just against atheists and gays and blacks. They will vote against the international jewish banker's conspiracy but right now the GOP isn't going to go there because Romney and all their other guys are as implicated.
This is why the anti Romney stuff is so potent even with Republican voters. Because at this time in a massive financial crash and recession when the white middle class wakes up and finds out that its not really middle class anymore there's no one to attack but bankers. The votes will go to the person who successfully demonizes bankers because that's where the money is. And people want money and jobs. And they can see, for once, in the unemployment line that its not blacks and hispanics who are taking the jobs. No one has jobs.
I think we are at a potential inflection point in the crazy that has been the white middle class/GOP alliance. The GOP can either bring home the bacon emotionally and financially or it can't. Romney is not positioned to do it.
aimai
Uh, for the record and for other readers, the "international jewish banker's conspiracy" should be read ironically.
aimai
Well... sociopolitical sea changes do occur, all right, so I wouldn't negate the possibility that at least a perceptible chunk of the presumed GOP base could hive off at some point. But if it happens at all, I don't see it happening soon enough to deny Mitty the nomination, and I expect the SC results to confirm that. Where it may show up, IMO, is in the general, in the form of reduced GOP voter enthusiasm/turnout. Overall, though, I'm skeptical that the GOP base will splinter in any big way soon. As bad as this recession's been, it hasn't approached 1930 et seq., and I think it would take something of that magnitude to shake the lumpenright loose from its allegiances.
Well said, Aimai. The GOP couldn't have picked a worse candidate in this sort of climate. I'm not saying Romney is guaranteed to lose -- in fact, I think he's probably the most electable of that bad lot (aside from Huntsman, who just had a terrible campaign infrastructure), but that says more about the field than Romney, who lacks only spats, a top hat and a monocle to complete the picture.
The same "Americans" who approve of the police pepper spraying, beating, and imprisoning OWS for exercising their right to peacefully protest will also be turning in Real Patriots who battle the emerging communism in America (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20120052-503544.html). The world has seen all this before. In colonial America most colonists believed the British propaganda about our Forefathers being crazies and terrorists. They helped the Red Coats capture many of them. In communist Russia informers and government laplickers were everywhere. Ditto for Nazi Germany. Their kind will do anything to ingratiate themselves to the authorities and save their own skins. These people try to convince us THEY'RE the real patriots because they "stand behind America", but they're just the opposite. America wouldn't be descending into communism if it weren't for their stupidity. REMEMBER, COMMUNISTS AND NAZIS DON'T PUT PEOPLE AWAY FOR TELLING LIES, IT'S FOR TELLING THE TRUTH. Finally, OWS and RON PAUL'S GENUINE ORIGINAL TEA PARTY have one very important thing in common: They both know the "jewish" bankers are behind most of the world's economic, political, and social problems and have been for a very long time (http://www.iamthewitness.com/DarylBradfordSmith_Rothschild.htm).
DEAN BERRY MINISTRIES: "When a government outlaws 'terrorism', it's planning something for which 'terrorism' is the only recourse. Obviously."
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