I’m sure by now you’ve seen excerpts from the infamous Romney video where he is speaking to a $50,000-a-plate fundraiser. The remarks are striking to me because of what they — and recent polling — say about the collapsing GOP view of our social contract.
Here it is:
Here are some key excerpts:
There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it.
Hmm. Does Romney think people not entitled to food? Let them eat cake!
My job is is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives. What I have to do is convince the five to 10 percent in the center that are independents, that are thoughtful….
No, he’ll never convince those 47% that they should take personal responsibility and feed themselves. Seriously! Then again, Romney probably won’t convince anyone of anything because he is one of the worst communicators to win any party’s presidential nominees in US history. Then again, he’s made a good living not worrying about “those people” — all 150 million of them!
Others have debunked the “analysis” in these remarks (see here and here).
If I can “name it” then I’m also interested to know whether Romney thinks people are entitled to cleaner air and cleaner water — and a livable climate. Or are those matters of “personal responsibility” too? In regulation-free Romney-land, corporations are apparently entitled to do whatever they want (see “Permitting Poison In The Air Means More Money For The Romney-Ryan Campaign“).
Is there no “personal responsibility” not to poison people, not to foul the air and water? Isn’t Romney the guy who said corporations are people?
The Washington Post points us to a fascinating June Pew poll in its analysis of the nonsensical politics of Romney’s callous remarks, “Most independents believe the government should guarantee food and shelter.” I know it is hard for Romney to believe that those independents actually care about their fellow human beings. After all, what’s in it for them? Are they their brothers’ keepers?
The Pew poll noted that partisan polarization has increased in several areas of the social contract — no more so than in the area of the environment.
Republican agreement that we need stronger laws and regulations affecting the environment has collapsed. But other polling suggests this is mostly the Tea Party crowd who get their “news” from right-wing media — see “Independents, Other Republicans Split With Tea-Party Extremists on Global Warming.“ After all, Yale reported this year that “75 Percent of Americans Support Regulating CO2 As A Pollutant.”
Conservative columnist David Brooks writes in his debunking column, “Thurston Howell Romney“:
Romney’s comments also reveal that he has lost any sense of the social compact. In 1987, during Ronald Reagan’s second term, 62 percent of Republicans believed that the government has a responsibility to help those who can’t help themselves. Now, according to the Pew Research Center, only 40 percent of Republicans believe that.
How much has the Republican Party changed? Here is Teddy Roosevelt in his famous 1910, “New Nationalism” speech in Osawatomie, Kansas:
… the health and vitality of our people are at least as well worth conserving as their forests, waters, lands, and minerals, and in this great work the national government must bear a most important part….
I guess he’d be called a socialist today.
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
Funny thing is that Romney used that number because 47% of Americans don’t pay federal income taxes.
But the New York Times recently reported that, of the 400 highest-income Americans (with an average income of over $200 million), 6 paid no income tax.
How about Romney? Is he one of the 47% who we can conclude are “dependent on government and believe they are victims” because they pay no taxes?
We won’t know as long as he refuses to release his tax returns.
CBS had this article today
Fact-checking Romney’s “47 percent”
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57515033-503544/fact-checking-romneys-47-percent-comment/?tag=pop;stories
“The same data shows that in 2011, 78,000 tax filers with incomes between $211,000 and $533,000 paid no income taxes; 24,000 households with incomes of $533,000 to $2.2 million paid no income taxes, and 3,000 tax filers with incomes above $2.2 million paid no income taxes.”
I’m afraid that Romney’s ‘gaffe’ may not have the proper effect, and may simply elicit even greater contributions from the parasite class, knowing now that Romney intends to run a very hard Right regime, to their advantage. After all, all he did for his plutocratic mates was succinctly outline the feelings of utter detestation and malignant indifference that the leech class feel for the rest of humanity. They feel similarly towards the Tea Party morons who vote for the Bosses, against their own interests, but that hideous faction of human mediocrity will vote, like turkeys looking forward to Christmas, in anticipation of those under them getting their heads kicked in first. The true genius of ‘winner takes all’ adversarial politics in capitalist sham ‘democracies’ is that it institutes divide and rule, not just as a tactic for the predatory elite to rule over the rabble, but as the daily reality of life in every sphere. As inequality grows, as poverty, misery, hunger and neglect become more entrenched, the demonisation and barbarisation of a burgeoning underclass will be useful as a tactic to mobilise a frightened and greedy middle, until that middle shrinks, as more and more fall into poverty. Then things will get really interesting, just about the time that ecological collapse goes into overdrive. You people in the good old US of A desperately need a new Revolution, before it’s too late.
We all need a revolution Mulga, against the hierarchical ordering of human beings – look where it has got us all in 250 short years. Hopefully the survivors will have the knowledge and sense to re-institute the old system of shared responsibility and equality, ME
Extremist Republicans and Christians say Solyndra to hide the fact of slowly turning us ”47%” into Soylent Green.
“am I my brother’s keeper?”.
Based on context the answer to that question was “yes”.
I guess when Mitt chose Paul Ryan to “balance the ticket” the kind of balance he had in mind was the balance between Tweedledee and Tweedledum. These plutocratic creeps have got to be two of the most unpleasant ******** who have managed to make their way to the top of a ticket of a major political party in living memory. Richard Nixon looks charming in comparison – they even give Dick Cheney a run for his money.
yah, and that Nixon started the EPA…. what a hippy tree-hugger he was.
Until the last few days, I would have guessed grazing his wife’s olympic horse and not 47% was Mitt’s tragedy of the commons.
Most interesting Question: Where do all these “moochers” (as Romney referred to them) live? Romney says the moochers are going to vote for Obama.
Here is the top 15 “moocher states”:
Mississippi, Georgia, Arkansas,New Mexico,Alabama,South Carolina,Louisiana,Texas,Florida,Idaho,Tennessee,North Carolina,Utah, Arizona,Kentucky
Yes indeed, in these states, Obama should cruise to victory, if you believe Mitt Romney.
I guess he must be planning to lose big.
‘Moocher’ is straight out of Ayn Rand’s gospel of hatred.
My take on that Paul, is “GOP Voter Suppression” is working as intended. Since “enslavement” has become unconstitutional, keep the masses bare foot, pregnant, hungry and of course brain washed and silent! Threat them like mushrooms, keep them in the dark and feed them sanitized sh*t! (The only thing that the GOP is adapt at recycling.)
Long live the Net, Free Press, (as exemplified here on CP), and LOVE for fellow Humanity, Scientific open source knowledge, and Earth’s Life Support Systems.
To Joe, commentators and all those boots on the ground, fellow Comrades in the R-love-ution, one and all, while this battle of the ages is far from over and may well never be, this 71 year old war torn and tattered body will soon have to pass my books and “gun” to the younger generation to continue the struggle started by visionaries of the past. Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Lincoln, Founding Fathers, and on to antiquity, numbers too large to name but none the less important and on to the first strand of DNA that struggled for a better life for its progeny. Two Palms Up, one and all.
In the words of Leonard Cohan, in “Anthem”
“Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in every thing
That’s how the light gets in.”
Leif
Joe,
Yesterday evening I started reading your Language Intelligence (and as a french speaking, it will take some evenings to achieve it, but I suppose it is worth the effort!).
This morning, I want to thank you for your punchy and original and fair headline: who takes responsbility for pollution? The richer is the more polluter, thank you to remind us of this evidence!
I can’t believe that not anyone even on Evil Inhofe’s donor (money or organ) list, has stepped away from the trough long enough to say that “I made it!!!” in response to the question – “Who is Responsible for Pollution?”.
Mitt Romney: He makes Calvin Coolidge seem like a social butterfly.
Pollution equals money, those who make the most money from it will fight to keep the right to Pollute. Will we stop them? If not it comes down to a simple truth, we pull together or perish. You can’t eat money!