Back in 2009, conservatives made their political goals pretty obvious: do anything in their power to make the Obama administration fail and thus limit it to one term. This was not some kind of secret conspiracy, everyone from Mitch McConnell on down to Rush Limbaugh said it out loud straight into the microphone. After four years of unprecedented filibusters, Tea Party histrionics, and wild accusations that the president is a foreign-born imposter hell-bent on destroying America's very essence, the American public rejected this irresponsible gambit at the polls.
If you've been paying attention to the political news since last Tuesday, you might think that Republicans are unaware that we just had an election where the president was re-elected, and Republicans lost seats in both houses of Congresses. Not only that, their Tea Party Senate candidates in Indiana and Missouri -states Romney won- went down in defeat, and the GOP maintained the House largely because of gerrymandering. By any rational measure, the Republican party and the ideas it stands for were clearly repudiated.
Despite these facts, John McCain continues to rant about Benghazi in a conspiratorial fashion that voters just don't buy. Worse still, he is doing so in a blatant attempt to smear Susan Rice, one of the likely replacements for Hilary Clinton as Secretary of State. (His insulting remarks about her "not being too bright" are rather reminiscent of John Sununu's infamous denunciation of our law professor president's intellect.) These shenanigans are an obvious shot across the bow to the president, sending the message that even though he just won re-election, Republicans will continue to obstruct and libel just as they did before.
I've also been puzzled and irritated by the fact that Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney are still in the news. One of the best things about Obama winning was that I thought I could be sure not to have to hear Mitt Romney's smirky, asshole boss voice over my radio ever again, and that his dead-eyed granny killer sidekick would take a low profile for the time being. Instead, I am hearing all about Romney's self-serving narrative about why he lost the election, which boils down to "Obama did a dirty deal by giving away freebies to those lazy black and brown people, and by enabling slatternly young women to engage in immorality." This makers vs. takers bullshit heavily tinged with racial animus and misogyny is the same kind of garbage the right subjected us to for the past election year. I can't recall a time when a defeated presidential candidate was this far out into the public eye and making such flagrantly divisive statements so soon after an election. He's almost acting as if the campaign is still going, and the election that he lost wasn't real or legitimate.
I guess the right's willingness to forget the election ever happened is consistent with their behavior before the election and on election night itself, when Republicans refused to believe the poll numbers were true and Karl Rove had his famous meltdown on live television. Both Mitch McConnell and John Boehner wouldn't get out of bed to talk to the president when he called their homes that night, a childish act of denial. Conservatives think they are the "real America," and thus it is simply impossible and against the laws of the universe that they would not be commanding it. If a liberal black Democrat is in charge, no matter if he beat them twice, it is an unacceptable state of affairs. A poll out today shows that a majority of Republicans do not think that the party ought to cooperate with the president, despite the oncoming "fiscal cliff" and the fact that their party has just lost an election.
I had hope that this election would be a wake-up call, especially after Chris Christie's willingness to put his animus against the president aside and act like an adult for once. It seems that my hopes were misplaced, and that the GOP will remain the ideologically extreme death cult that it has become in recent years. I can only shudder to think about the implications of this on our country's need to solve some pressing problems.
Showing posts with label Mitt Romney. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mitt Romney. Show all posts
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Friday, November 2, 2012
White Like Me: Romney's Not-So-Secret Weapon
Some news sources have been discussing the narrowing of the "gender gap" in presidential polling this year, which is awfully surprising given that one candidate signed an equal pay for equal work measure into law on his first day in office, and the other represents a party full of Bible bangers obsessed with controlling women's bodies.
One thing we're not hearing much, however, is that the erosion of the "gender gap" might be greatly explained by the growth of the "race gap." In Florida, for example, Romney leads by 30 percentage points among white without college degrees, despite Romney's support for policies totally antithetical to the economic interests of the working classes. This matches the numbers across the South, where in 2008 Barack Obama won 98% of the black vote and 11% of the white vote in Mississippi. The gap is getting bigger, and as Chauncey DeVega at WARN has pointed out, Romney is gaining among white voters even after losing two debates! There seems to be an implicit, lizard-brain notion among many white people that Romney is inherently more worthy of being president because he is white like them. Charles Blow's recent blog backs up that interpretation with poll numbers that show a significant chunk of (white) voters who think Obama is more trustworthy than Romney, but will be voting for Romney anyway. That, my friends, is white privilege at its most fearsome.
Occasionally some public figures just come right out and say what they're really thinking in regards to the fact that Romney is white like them. Take for instance Thomas Friedman, that oracle for suburban businessmen who are too busy to actually formulate real thoughts about the global economy. He recently commented that many (white) voters decided for Obama in 2008 out of the novelty of having a black president, and are now willing to try "something new," as if Romney is in any way "new." The subtext was clear: "it was an interesting novelty to have a black president, but now let's give the White House back to the type of person who really belongs there." Sarah Palin's "shuck and jive" nonsense came out of a more overt dehumanization of the president via his race.
I'd long known that voting for Obama put me in a minority as far as white males were concerned. Obama won only 41% of white male votes, and this was considered a "strong" performance. It now looks like Romney is leading among white women as well, and, as I have mentioned, is getting a lot of support from the white working class. When you think about the numbers, it's a little crazy that only 41% of white men voted for a candidate who won a decisive election, and that in the the last month Obama has polled as little as 32% of white men.
I'm proud to be a part of that 32%, but I am saddened by the implications of the numbers, since they confirm my pessimistic gut instincts. White men are fiercely guarding their privilege, and despite his outright lies, constant flip-flopping, and lack of any specific policy plan, Romney is still one of their own, and Obama is not. I can only hope that that enough of what Harvey Milk called "the us people" show up to the polls to counteract the aggressive defense of whiteness.
One thing we're not hearing much, however, is that the erosion of the "gender gap" might be greatly explained by the growth of the "race gap." In Florida, for example, Romney leads by 30 percentage points among white without college degrees, despite Romney's support for policies totally antithetical to the economic interests of the working classes. This matches the numbers across the South, where in 2008 Barack Obama won 98% of the black vote and 11% of the white vote in Mississippi. The gap is getting bigger, and as Chauncey DeVega at WARN has pointed out, Romney is gaining among white voters even after losing two debates! There seems to be an implicit, lizard-brain notion among many white people that Romney is inherently more worthy of being president because he is white like them. Charles Blow's recent blog backs up that interpretation with poll numbers that show a significant chunk of (white) voters who think Obama is more trustworthy than Romney, but will be voting for Romney anyway. That, my friends, is white privilege at its most fearsome.
Occasionally some public figures just come right out and say what they're really thinking in regards to the fact that Romney is white like them. Take for instance Thomas Friedman, that oracle for suburban businessmen who are too busy to actually formulate real thoughts about the global economy. He recently commented that many (white) voters decided for Obama in 2008 out of the novelty of having a black president, and are now willing to try "something new," as if Romney is in any way "new." The subtext was clear: "it was an interesting novelty to have a black president, but now let's give the White House back to the type of person who really belongs there." Sarah Palin's "shuck and jive" nonsense came out of a more overt dehumanization of the president via his race.
I'd long known that voting for Obama put me in a minority as far as white males were concerned. Obama won only 41% of white male votes, and this was considered a "strong" performance. It now looks like Romney is leading among white women as well, and, as I have mentioned, is getting a lot of support from the white working class. When you think about the numbers, it's a little crazy that only 41% of white men voted for a candidate who won a decisive election, and that in the the last month Obama has polled as little as 32% of white men.
I'm proud to be a part of that 32%, but I am saddened by the implications of the numbers, since they confirm my pessimistic gut instincts. White men are fiercely guarding their privilege, and despite his outright lies, constant flip-flopping, and lack of any specific policy plan, Romney is still one of their own, and Obama is not. I can only hope that that enough of what Harvey Milk called "the us people" show up to the polls to counteract the aggressive defense of whiteness.
Friday, October 12, 2012
Things We've Learned in the Last Month of the Election
The past month has been one of the craziest periods in an election that I can remember. It started with Mitt Romney looking sunk, only to be followed by his campaign's improbable resurgence. All of the craziness has revealed quite a bit. Here's what I've seen revealed, in bullet point form:
- With the blatant politicization of the attack on the Libyan embassy by Republicans, we now have an inkling of what it would have been like had Al Gore, and not George W. Bush, been president on 9/11.
- Despite the fact that Romney's willingness to use the events in Benghazi to go after the president before the dust had even settled made him look completely opportunistic and unfit to be a leader, only a month later, he is making this issue the centerpiece of his campaign, as if he previous, damning actions had never taken place. The fact that the media is letting him get away with it is just more proof that our public discourse is built on amnesia.
- The fact that the post-debate coverage has centered on facial expressions rather than substance, or on the lies being told repeatedly by Romney and Ryan, is just more proof that our political process is a media circus taking place in a post-factual world.
- The fact that conservatives were calling the vice-presidential debate a "draw" (rather than a Ryan win) and are already desperately trying to change the subject to Libya is proof that Ryan clearly lost the debate.
- The re-release of then Senator Obama's 2007 comments at Hampton University are part of a blatant attempt to stir up white racial resentment by the right-wing press. Such resentment is now clearly and openly a part of the conservative political mainstream.
- Romney has not and will not be punished for his strategy of lying his ass off at every turn.
- The fact that Romney and Ryan still have a chance at winning the White House despite their taped comments showing a complete contempt for half the country's population is just another example of how in a democracy, the people get the government that they deserve, and they get it with a vengeance.
Friday, August 24, 2012
The Romney Campaign's Odd Embrace of James K. Polk
One of the strangest tendencies of conservatives in recent years has been to invoke names from the distant past of American history in order to justify retrograde policies in the present. Often, as is the case with hacks like David Barton, these amateur historians engage in gross distortions of the historical record. (Although progressives have a proud political past in this country, they seem less historically inclined.) Just today I read that Romney campaign manager Matt Rhoades said that a Romney administration might be like that of James K. Polk, as if that was a good thing.
For those of you who don't know, Polk served for only one term, from 1845 to 1849. He did not run for a second, and died soon after leaving office. In his one term he accomplished his primary goal, which was the expansion of American territory. His presidency gave us the treaties with Great Britain giving the United States control over Oregon Territory, the annexation of Texas, and consequently war with Mexico from 1846 to 1848 that added California and the Southwest to the United States. Rhoades compared the boldness of Polk's expansionism to the boldness of the Romney-Ryan plan to gut ("reform") the social safety net.
I tend to think that people in this country either view American history from a nationalist or a humanist perspective. From a nationalist point of view, Polk might look pretty admirable. He drastically expanded American territory, including some of the most economically important regions of the country today. However, from a humanist standpoint, Polk looks more like an unscrupulous, blood-thirsty extremist whose rash actions did horrific damage.
First, let's take the annexation of Texas. Contrary to Texan mythology, once the Republic of Texas broke away from Mexico in 1835, it did not really want independence, but to join the United States. This was opposed by many in Congress, because Texas was a slave-holding state, and bringing in Texas would greatly expand territory where slavery held sway. (Mexico had banned slavery after its independence, and one important reason for the Texan independence movement was to preserve slavery, something many Texans are loathe to admit today.) There was also the question of whether annexing Texas would bring about war with Mexico, which claimed the land between the Rio Grande and the Nueces, also claimed by the Texans. Polk pushed the addition of Texas to the union, accomplished in 1845.
He sent representatives to the Mexican government to purchase California and New Mexico, but could not get an agreement. Instead of respecting Mexican sovereignty, he sent a military force under Zachary Taylor to the Rio Grande, in what Mexico considered its territory. He did this in order to provoke a war, and this strategy proved successful. The anticipated short war did not pan out, and it lasted a bloody two years because the Mexican people put up a stout resistance. Although the number of American war dead was pretty small by the standard of later wars, this war did have the highest percentage loss of life among the troops of any military conflict in American history. In the end Mexico had to surrender and agree to the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, which signed over the desired land for a much lower price than Polk had offered in peacetime. There had been talk of taking all of Mexico, but racists like John C Calhoun warned against polluting the United States with brown-skinned Catholics. His contemptuous attitude towards the Mexican people reflected larger feelings and had some pretty negative consequences. In the aftermath of the war, the Hispanic inhabitants of this newly Americanized territory had their lands confiscated and found themselves turned into second-class citizens.
The war with Mexico was not a necessary conflict, but a war of aggression and naked conquest on the part of the United States. This begs the question of why Polk was so keen to expand American territory. There were the usual nationalistic reasons, of course, but Polk was especially concerned with creating new territory for slavery. The Missouri Compromise had limited the land available for slave states, something Southerners feared would eventually leave them outnumbered in their desire to preserve the "peculiar institution." For that reason, he had attempted to negotiate with Spain over the sale of Cuba before talks fell through.
Many great American at the time were fully aware that Polk had intended to expand slavery, and had instigated a war to do so and then tried to cover up his machinations with lies. Serving his only term in Congress, a young Abraham Lincoln denounced the war's illegality and assailed Polk for intentionally misleading the American public. Henry David Thoureau went to jail after refusing to pay his taxes in support of a war for slavery. After years of acquiescing to the "gag rule" in Congress that immediately tabled any petitions related to slavery, Northern politicians like David Wilmot put the issue on the table by demanding that slavery not be expanded into the newly acquired territory. The fierce dispute over the expansion of slavery is what eventually brought about the Civil War. No matter what Matt Rhoades and other conservatives might believe, I don't think that the glories of Manifest Destiny can wash the blood off of Polk's hands.
The Romney campaign's emulation of Polk reveals a lot. He and his crew don't seem to be a very reflective bunch, and so might not even be aware of the realities of Polk's policies. Furthermore, Mitt is so power-hungry that he will say practically anything to get elected, and strikes me as the kind of person totally willing to lie to the American public to get what he wants, much like Polk. Just as Polk pushed American expansion in the interests of the Slave Power, Romney cares most about his friends in the corporate world, who are showering him with millions of dollars. Come to think of it, Mitt just might have found his perfect role model.
For those of you who don't know, Polk served for only one term, from 1845 to 1849. He did not run for a second, and died soon after leaving office. In his one term he accomplished his primary goal, which was the expansion of American territory. His presidency gave us the treaties with Great Britain giving the United States control over Oregon Territory, the annexation of Texas, and consequently war with Mexico from 1846 to 1848 that added California and the Southwest to the United States. Rhoades compared the boldness of Polk's expansionism to the boldness of the Romney-Ryan plan to gut ("reform") the social safety net.
I tend to think that people in this country either view American history from a nationalist or a humanist perspective. From a nationalist point of view, Polk might look pretty admirable. He drastically expanded American territory, including some of the most economically important regions of the country today. However, from a humanist standpoint, Polk looks more like an unscrupulous, blood-thirsty extremist whose rash actions did horrific damage.
First, let's take the annexation of Texas. Contrary to Texan mythology, once the Republic of Texas broke away from Mexico in 1835, it did not really want independence, but to join the United States. This was opposed by many in Congress, because Texas was a slave-holding state, and bringing in Texas would greatly expand territory where slavery held sway. (Mexico had banned slavery after its independence, and one important reason for the Texan independence movement was to preserve slavery, something many Texans are loathe to admit today.) There was also the question of whether annexing Texas would bring about war with Mexico, which claimed the land between the Rio Grande and the Nueces, also claimed by the Texans. Polk pushed the addition of Texas to the union, accomplished in 1845.
He sent representatives to the Mexican government to purchase California and New Mexico, but could not get an agreement. Instead of respecting Mexican sovereignty, he sent a military force under Zachary Taylor to the Rio Grande, in what Mexico considered its territory. He did this in order to provoke a war, and this strategy proved successful. The anticipated short war did not pan out, and it lasted a bloody two years because the Mexican people put up a stout resistance. Although the number of American war dead was pretty small by the standard of later wars, this war did have the highest percentage loss of life among the troops of any military conflict in American history. In the end Mexico had to surrender and agree to the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, which signed over the desired land for a much lower price than Polk had offered in peacetime. There had been talk of taking all of Mexico, but racists like John C Calhoun warned against polluting the United States with brown-skinned Catholics. His contemptuous attitude towards the Mexican people reflected larger feelings and had some pretty negative consequences. In the aftermath of the war, the Hispanic inhabitants of this newly Americanized territory had their lands confiscated and found themselves turned into second-class citizens.
The war with Mexico was not a necessary conflict, but a war of aggression and naked conquest on the part of the United States. This begs the question of why Polk was so keen to expand American territory. There were the usual nationalistic reasons, of course, but Polk was especially concerned with creating new territory for slavery. The Missouri Compromise had limited the land available for slave states, something Southerners feared would eventually leave them outnumbered in their desire to preserve the "peculiar institution." For that reason, he had attempted to negotiate with Spain over the sale of Cuba before talks fell through.
Many great American at the time were fully aware that Polk had intended to expand slavery, and had instigated a war to do so and then tried to cover up his machinations with lies. Serving his only term in Congress, a young Abraham Lincoln denounced the war's illegality and assailed Polk for intentionally misleading the American public. Henry David Thoureau went to jail after refusing to pay his taxes in support of a war for slavery. After years of acquiescing to the "gag rule" in Congress that immediately tabled any petitions related to slavery, Northern politicians like David Wilmot put the issue on the table by demanding that slavery not be expanded into the newly acquired territory. The fierce dispute over the expansion of slavery is what eventually brought about the Civil War. No matter what Matt Rhoades and other conservatives might believe, I don't think that the glories of Manifest Destiny can wash the blood off of Polk's hands.
The Romney campaign's emulation of Polk reveals a lot. He and his crew don't seem to be a very reflective bunch, and so might not even be aware of the realities of Polk's policies. Furthermore, Mitt is so power-hungry that he will say practically anything to get elected, and strikes me as the kind of person totally willing to lie to the American public to get what he wants, much like Polk. Just as Polk pushed American expansion in the interests of the Slave Power, Romney cares most about his friends in the corporate world, who are showering him with millions of dollars. Come to think of it, Mitt just might have found his perfect role model.
Monday, July 30, 2012
What If...Barack Obama Acted Like Mitt Romney on a Foreign Trip?
Introduction: Mitt Romney is currently traveling abroad, and has so far managed to offend his British hosts with his comments on the London Olympics, and soon after arriving in Israel, insulted Palestinians for good measure, too. Three other aspects of his trip are getting less press but are notable: he has been engaging in major fund raisers while traveling abroad, he has essentially said that if he were president he would subsume American foreign policy to Israeli wishes, and he has praised Israel's health care system as superior to that of the United States. I think that the lack of broad comment on these things puzzling, since the president is being accused of being "anti-American" by his opponents, but here you have his adversary dissing the United States while in a foreign location, and openly begging for money from people who do not live in the United States. I get the feeling that there would be a quite a firestorm if Barack Obama did these same things. Since counterfactuals are always fun, I've envisioned here what the reaction would be like.
*WHOOSHING OVERDRAMATIC MUSIC*
Hannity: Welcome back to Hannity, ladies and gentlemen. As you may have heard, Barack Obama's hatred for America reared its head yet again this week during his foreign trip. While visiting Europe, he held multiple fundraisers with people who are technically American citizens, but who have not been living in this country for years. As if that's not enough, while he was in France, Obama praised its socialized healthcare system during one of these fundraisers. To talk about this, we have Jerome Corsi, Rush Limbaugh, and Bill O'Reilly here with us tonight. Hello gentlemen.
Corsi, Limbaugh, and O'Reilly: Hello Sean
Hannity: What do you make of these actions by the president?
Limbaugh: For years the liberals have been whining, as they always do, that when we call Obama "anti-American" that's racism, since you know to liberals you can never criticize a black person without being a racist. Well now it's obvious that this man hates America, something he learned from his Kenyan father. We have the best healthcare system in the world, and yet he goes to France and tells them they're better than us. This just goes to show that we are a nation under occupation by a foreign power. He's also taking money from foreign sources. I don't care if the contributors are American, I'm sure that's just a front so all of his socialist buddies in Europe can funnel money to him.
Hannity: Yes, I wonder where the FEC is in all of this.
O'Reilly: The Romney campaign has been sounding the alarm on Obama's anti-Americanism, I think they've been vindicated. By going to a foreign nation and running down the United States, Obama is giving aid and comfort to our terrorist enemies. Congress should draft articles of impeachment, and anyone who doesn't think so is willing to let a man who loves his foreign friends more than his own people. I will apologize for being an idiot if he is not impeached.
Hannity: I can't think of another American political figure who has betrayed the nation like this, yet his allies on the left will just sit by and watch it happen.
Corsi: If I may cut in, I think Obama's actions reflect a foreign attitude and the inability to understand what it means to be an America. It's high time we took another look at his birth certificate, since this seems to be the work of a foreign agent, not the president of the United States. He is trying so hard to cover up his secret identity, but I think in his comments in France, which he thought would be private, Obama has let the mask drop a little bit.
Limbaugh: And if you can believe it, Obama's biggest contributor is a man who made his money from casinos in China. I think we could be seeing a backdoor way for Red China to control the United States and turn it into something else.
Hannity: Well it looks like the president will be in a lot of hot water for so flagrantly disrespecting the country he is supposed to lead. Next up on Hannity, we'll take a look at the president's gambling kingpin moneyman, and talk to Mike Huckabee about the connection between Obama's lack of values and support by those who profit from immoral activity like gambling.
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Mitt Romney's Desperate Appeal to White Identity Politics
I've always hated the term "identity politics," since it's usually employed by conservatives to deride the efforts of any group of people who are not white or straight in their quest for rights and respect. There are some true instances of identity politics, however, and we are seeing one right now in the case of Willard Mitt Romney, and it comes from desperation.
His now infamous warbling of songs like "America, the Beautiful" during the campaign are part of a noxious attempt to paint himself as "American" and the president as "un-American." The worst of the insinuations have come from mouthpieces like John Sununu, who had the audacity to say "I wish this president would learn how to be an American." Romney himself has claimed fealty to "Americanism" and has implied that his opponent does not. Romney's campaign has recently tried to step this up a notch with claims that the president does not understand the "Anglo-Saxon" ties between the United States and Great Britain because of his heritage. At base, this tactic is trying to president Obama into the Other, in large part due to his race and background. The implicit message in these statements is not to say that Romney would be a better president, but that he is white (and therefore "American"), and Barack Obama is not.
Romney is doing this less to appeal to undecided voters, but to get Republicans to the polls. Mitt is disliked by his own base, who tried out the loony likes of Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann before they realized that Mitt was the only Republican presidential candidate with a chance of appealing to the broader electorate. Without enthusiasm among the base, Mitt can't get the vote out, and will thus lose. Because of his moderate record in Massachusetts and his passage of a health care plan very similar to Obama's, Romney can't run on his past accomplishments, since this will inflame the anger of his base against him. Instead, he must harness the deep and scary reservoirs of paranoid hatred against the president lurking in right wing circles, much of it motivated by the mere fact that a black man is the president of the United States.
Outside of his base, Romney's still got a lot of problems. Unlike the president, who is tremendously charismatic, Romney lacks the common touch, and when he opens his mouth in informal situations, usually makes a complete ass out of himself. The examples are legion, but here are just the highlights: his tendency to guess the age of people he's just met, his casual discussions of ten thousand dollar bets and his wife's Cadillacs, his admission that he knows NASCAR owners rather than fans, and finally, his rude and ill chosen remarks about the London Olympics. To my ears he comes across like every insensitive, authoritarian, jerkward boss I've ever worked for. Voters aren't exactly excited about having their asshole boss as their president.
Many uncharismatic candidates in the past have run on their credentials and abilities, but Romney can't do that, either. His time as a governor is off limits for aforementioned reasons, and his record at Bain has been a millstone around his neck because of its rapacious business practices. Romney is in a situation where he has absolutely nothing to run on, only the president to run against. The poor economy makes the president weak, but that's not enough for Romney to run on, since he has not really offered many specifics about what he would do to fix it. To draw a contrast between himself and the president, he is stooping to reminding voters that he is the "white" candidate, and his opponent isn't. The sad fact is that our modern elections are won less by making broad appeals to voters than by turning out one's respective base. (For example, back in 2004 the GOP put anti-gay marriage initiatives on several state ballots in order to drive up turnout among evangelicals.) That's why Republican state governments are suppressing potential Democratic voters, and why Republicans are calling the president "un-American." Even if it doesn't work, the consequences for the body politic will be dire.
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