The Masters of the Universe - the Romneys of our country - need certain services accomplished. They will pay well for those services. But everyone else? Who needs them?
The children of the middle class? Useless spawn. The poor? Gawd, need I elaborate? The elderly? Superannuated human wreckage. The military? Except for the drone operators, helicopter mechanics, and the like, largely redundant. Cities like Albuquerque, or Amarillo, or Dubuque, or Baltimore, for that matter? No one will miss them. Los Angeles? Cut California off at the San Andreas Fault and sink the Left Coast Babylon! Women? Only the breeders are important; the rest talk too much.
No, it's not just the 47% of Obama supporters. It's almost everyone!
But it's those utterly useless people who will, entirely on their own, decide the election. In just a few weeks too!
To Romney, I'm sure it's an unfair situation. But the Masters of the Universe understood a long time ago that that is just how life is.
Then there is this alternative formulation:
The super-wealthy have to be looking over their shoulders, smothering their souls, constantly at war with their own consciences. Deep down, they fear - they KNOW - that they're just grifters, rich on what they steal from those who work for a living (or what they inherited from some grifter daddy or grandaddy). They know they should be ashamed. So they need someone to salve their conscience, someone to tell them that greed is good, someone to say that the poor deserve to be poor - money follows morality. If they can believe the poor are just lazy leeches, they can believe their wealth comes from hard work and morality. And at that point, tax cuts and other punishments for the poor become not just a matter of fairness to the "job creators", but a matter of morality. Government aid to the poor leads to "a discontented, lazy rabble instead of a thrifty working class", as Henry Potter put it in It's a Wonderful Life.
And Mitt Romney, self-serving liar that he is, told them what they wanted to hear, in a way that forwarded his own interests (getting elected). He told them the poor were all Democrats, which is hardly true. And he told them he, the anointed leader of the Republicans, would protect them from the Democrat-voting rabble.
Liar. But, unlike most of the rest of us, the rich Republicans are stupid enough to believe it.
It's always quite fascinating how archly cynical liberals are about how they think "The Rich" perceive "The Poor," when they think the mic is off. What about "The Rich" that are liberal, as many many are? Are they excluded from this cynicism? Bill Gates, who apparently soaked and slave-drove tens of thousands of Microsoft employees so he can meddle in the dynamics of the universe from his Mercer Island compound? The "Oracle of Omaha" who has made his billions by gaming businesses and the markets. Did they "earn it?" Of course not. Are they giving up all of their wealth for various causes to salve their guilt over being so incredibly wealthy? Nope - they're doing what is right and I doubt they feel guilty at all for being extremely wealthy. In fact, because they are liberal and ultra-wealthy I'm sure they are quite comfortable because the DailyKosidiots won't be coming after them. Instead they'll plant their "We're the 99%" signs outside Wells Fargo and feel quite happy to go after rich Republicans simply because they're Republicans and because the only real, fundamental goal is to create class warfare, an "us vs. them" mentality that plays in the academy and coffee houses and the innumerable echo chambers. "Take Back the Wealth" (that we didn't make) their bumper stickers proclaim! From whom? Do you believe the only ultra wealthy that "steal" money are rich Republicans? You don't think Steve Jobs (may he rest in peace) gamed the system by slave-driving 11-year-old Chinese in distant factories building iPhones at huge, huge markup, often making 60+% margins on his overpriced hardware? And Steve Jobs was anything but a rich Republican.
ReplyDeleteIf you and your echo chamber really want to proclaim rich white Republicans are the only self-serving liars, contemplate those who have exploited, stolen, lied, and cheated to achieve great wealth - and are anything but Republicans and conservatives. The only real unfortunate truth is that liberals lie to themselves about the unfortunate truth of how utterly disingenuous and self-serving they are to falsely promote a belief.
Good points! The rich aren't just Republicans!
ReplyDeleteNo, I think what irritates me most is the tone-deafness; the cluelessness; the condescension of Romney's remarks. Just because a person is poor or middle-class doesn't mean that person doesn't have interests broader than their own narrow economic interests. Yet Romney speaks of them as if self-interest is the only thing on their mind.
Romney can't reach 47% of the voters because they don't pay federal income tax? That includes the entire active-duty U.S. military! WTF!? And poorer people DO pay payroll and sales taxes, and the like, so it's not as if they are completely untaxed.
The GOP has had great success over the years obtaining cuts in government assistance by calling all government assistance 'welfare', whether it's 'welfare' or not. Recent efforts to cut back on Social Security assistance have tried to use that angle too.
In the 80's, prescient liberals objected to Reagan's efforts, through the EITC, to exempt the poor from federal taxation, because without 'skin in the game' it would deprive the liberals of a vital constituency to keep all other government assistance from being labeled 'welfare' too. Those predictions are now coming true. Reagan got the EITC passed in the 80's in order to allow Romney to treat the lower middle class as parasites today.
Romney has the knack of casually insulting people without himself even being aware of it. That ability was on display in this summer's European tour - the way he united the entire UK against him was just awesome - and that ability is on display now!