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You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2012 / Open Thread: Romney, Avatar of Rich White Male Privilege

Open Thread: Romney, Avatar of Rich White Male Privilege

by Anne Laurie|  August 25, 20122:27 am| 87 Comments

This post is in: Election 2012, Excellent Links, Open Threads, Assholes, Romney of the Uncanny Valley

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I think Adam Serwer, at Mother Jones, has the right take on Romney’s panderiffic birther “joke”:

… Romney is not himself a birther. He was engaging in ironic post-birtherism—showing solidarity with birthers by making a humorous remark that can be plausibly denied as a joke later. This is a necessary device for a Republican politician who wants to rile up the base without seeming like a lunatic, because the belief that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States is still held by nearly half of self-identified Republicans even after the very public release of the president’s birth certificate. Birtherism remains the most frank and widespread evidence of racial animus among some of the president’s critics. As Ta-Nehisi Coates writes in The Atlantic this month, the birthers, strapped in their waxen wings, aim for nothing less than the sun: “If Obama is not truly American, then America has still never had a black president.”…

I suspect many Republicans who continue to subscribe to the birther lunacy do so because it bothers liberals and because it’s an act of symbolic defiance of a president they dislike. The problem with birtherism, however, is that the underlying assumptions driving it have always been broader than the president. Birtherism is more than just a conspiracy theory about the president’s birth. Its underlying principle is a rejection of American racial pluralism. The refusal to believe—in the face of all evidence to the contrary—that Obama is an American reads to many as saying black people don’t really count as American unless they talk like Herman Cain or Allen West.

That’s the problem with Romney’s “joke,” too. It falls into a long list of remarks that suggest an emotional myopia based on an extremely sheltered life experience. It comes across as gloating about the fact that, as a rich white man born into a wealthy and powerful family, Romney has rarely been subject to the kind of racist or sexist assumptions that clog the daily lives of millions of Americans. Romney might as well joke that he’s never been mistaken for a waiter in a restaurant or a clerk in a retail store, or that he’s never been selected for extra screening at an airport or randomly told to empty his pockets by the NYPD. The reason Romney doesn’t have to show the country his papers isn’t because everyone knows he was born in Michigan. It’s because whiteness remains unquestionably “American” for some people in a way blackness does not. That should not be a point of pride for Romney; it should be a matter of anger and disappointment.

My emphasis. In fact, I’d go even further than Serwer on that particular facet of Romney’s unlikeability: Mitt keeps making it obvious that, for him, anyone not a white male worth at least a few million is just an interchangeable cog. A member of “The Help”, as Charlie Pierce puts it. He doesn’t need to understand our quaint little folkways, honor our tiny vanities, even remember our names — we just aren’t important enough to take up that much space in Willard “Mitt” Romney’s beautiful mind. A major facet of the GOP’s appeal to working-class white voters, especially white male voters, since Nixon’s “Southern Strategy”, has been the unspoken advertisment that voting Republican would set you off as a member of the elite… if not actually rich, or well-educated, or white, or male, at least an aspiring elitist with a clear superiority over the faceless mass of those people (non-whites, immigrants, women, DFHs, welfare queens, moochers & looters). Romney can’t manage to fake that GOP-standard wink’n’nod “we’re special, not like those horrible Democrats” bonhomie. It infuriates the very people he most needs to support him that he patently can’t tell the difference between Sean Hannity and Wolf Blitzer and the chairman of the tri-county RNC nominating committee and the counter monkey fetching Mitt’s hot chocolate. A not inconsiderable portion of the Republican voting population consists of those who would (as Davis X. Machina put it) “volunteer to live, with his family, in a cardboard box under an overpass, and cook sparrows on an old curtain rod, if someone would only guarantee that the black, gay, Hispanic, liberal, whatever, in the next box over doesn’t even have a curtain rod, or a sparrow to put on it.” To those people, it’s a mortal insult that Romney can’t even bring himself to pretend that he would appreciate their sacrifice — that Romney, in fact, may not be able to distinguish between their honorable sacrifice, and the slovenly unblessed non-Republican lifestyle choice of the DFHs in the next cardboard box over.

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87Comments

  1. 1.

    Kristine

    August 25, 2012 at 2:46 am

    I never thought I could disdain someone more than I do GWBush, but those Republicans just keep lowering the damn bar.

  2. 2.

    Jeff Spender

    August 25, 2012 at 2:48 am

    Very well put, and very depressing.

    I’ve noticed lately that a lot of old Republican stalwarts I used to know are more on the fence about whether or not they should be defending the party.

    On the other hand, a great deal of them are lapping up the welfare stuff (despite the fact that a few of them live on some sort of similar government assistance).

  3. 3.

    ? Martin

    August 25, 2012 at 2:49 am

    Spot on. All of it.

  4. 4.

    amk

    August 25, 2012 at 3:04 am

    Romney is not himself a birther.

    Fact not in evidence. He says so flies in the face of his publicly wooing that birther nutter trumpster.

  5. 5.

    Quaker in a Basement

    August 25, 2012 at 3:19 am

    Romney might as well joke that he’s never been mistaken for a waiter in a restaurant or a clerk in a retail store, or that he’s never been selected for extra screening at an airport or randomly told to empty his pockets by the NYPD. The reason Romney doesn’t have to show the country his papers isn’t because everyone knows he was born in Michigan. It’s because whiteness remains unquestionably “American” for some people in a way blackness does not. That should not be a point of pride for Romney; it should be a matter of anger and disappointment.

    This is the part that should be in bold.

  6. 6.

    JustAnotherBob

    August 25, 2012 at 3:26 am

    Can you imagine what must go on in that man’s head?

    How he must struggle to remember the latest position he’s decided to take on so many issues. He has no discernible core, he can’t fall back on his true feelings, if he can still remember what they are.

    He’s like an improv actor trying to stay in character while in a play that goes on for day after day after day. And the audience keeps throwing out more plot twists.

    I don’t think he even has a goal other than being elected president. I don’t think he’s working for the betterment of the 1%. He doesn’t care about them either. He just wants the damn merit badge to put on his scout sash.

  7. 7.

    Hill Dweller

    August 25, 2012 at 3:26 am

    Chris Hayes was a guest on Maddow’s show last night(Fri.). His theory was Willard is trying to bait the Obama campaign into calling him a racist, which would help him with the wingnut base. I actually think he is right.

    Willard used the line about Obamacare in the NAACP speech knowing he would get boo’d. After the speech, he went to a fundraiser, and told the attendees(knowing the press will report it) that they were booing him because he wouldn’t give them free stuff.

    Preibus, Ryan and Romney have repeatedly used the words ‘robbed’ and ‘steal’ when describing Obama reforms to Medicare.

    The patently false welfare adds are part and parcel of the same race baiting.

    The Obama campaign was too disciplined to take the bait.

    Willard’s birther joke was probably another attempt to get a reaction, but it came off poorly. It also gave the Obama campaign a chance to paint Willard as a crazy birther, instead of focusing on the obvious racial subtext.

    I’d love to see Willard lose any momentum they might have had because of an ill-timed birther joke.

  8. 8.

    karen marie

    August 25, 2012 at 3:37 am

    Charlie Pierce is on fire:

    In this campaign, for the very first time in my lifetime, in a dozen different ways, we are re-litigating in an election the issues that were decided in these shrouded hills. It began with Rick Perry, talking about secession and not laughing at all about it. It continued with Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum and Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich, the latter of which has gotten rich writing meretricious potboilers about the events that took place in these fields, talking quite proudly about their devotion to state sovereignty and the 10th Amendment.

    You have to go read the whole thing.

  9. 9.

    Lancelot Link

    August 25, 2012 at 4:19 am

    @Kristine: Remember those billboards with GWBush’s face and the words “Miss me yet?”
    With today’s Republican party, I’m beginning to.

  10. 10.

    Pavonis

    August 25, 2012 at 4:39 am

    volunteer to live, with his family, in a cardboard box under an overpass, and cook sparrows on an old curtain rod, if someone would only guarantee that the black, gay, Hispanic, liberal, whatever, in the next box over doesn’t even have a curtain rod, or a sparrow to put on it.”

    During the very early colonization of America, black and white indentured servants (serfs, more or less) had the same social standing. But they could unite together against the plantation elite. By elevating poor whites above black slaves, the whites could feel good about themselves and have a motive to defend the social system, as seen in the Civil War. This racial “divide-and-conquer” technique hasn’t changed in centuries.

  11. 11.

    gorram

    August 25, 2012 at 4:56 am

    @Pavonis: And they did in Bacon’s Rebellion (although it did target Native Americans along with sections of the White elite).

    Of course, that got shut down ASAP, with the system you described.

  12. 12.

    Older_Wiser

    August 25, 2012 at 5:09 am

    Don’t forget that Myth grew up in a religion (actually not unlike most others) that considered people of color vastly “inferior” to whites. Like most churches, it “officially” changed its tune (in 1976, if I remember correctly) in order to win converts to its fantastical tenets.

    Churches remain the most segregated institutions in the US even today. Isn’t it obvious why they are? You actually might have to freely associate with people you hate deep down inside your sociopathic being.

  13. 13.

    Older_Wiser

    August 25, 2012 at 5:23 am

    @karen marie: That is a must, absolutely must, read. It’s a masterpiece.

  14. 14.

    c u n d gulag

    August 25, 2012 at 6:14 am

    For a guy who thinks he’s the king of the hill, and wants to be the CEO of the USA, he’s actually just the latest Republican political monkey who has to dance when the base, the NRA, or the Koch Brothers, plays the tune.

    And here, now that Mitt has started to dance to the Rush “Limbo,” we have to ask ourselves, “How LOW can he GO?”

    I’m afraid, we ain’t seen nothing yet.

  15. 15.

    JPL

    August 25, 2012 at 6:18 am

    Mitt tied a dog in a crate to the roof of his car which questions his judgment and character.
    Mitt points out that whites aren’t questioned about little matters such as birth certificates which questions his judgment and character.
    How does this fit in with both sides do it?

  16. 16.

    AnonPhenom

    August 25, 2012 at 6:32 am

    @Kristine:
    Unlike Rmoney, Dubya could “talk the talk”.
    When Ann wrote:

    Romney can’t manage to fake that GOP-standard wink’n’nod “we’re special, not like those horrible Democrats” bonhomie.

    all I heard was Dubya in my head saying “You work 3 jobs? … Uniquely America! Isn’t it?”

  17. 17.

    AnonPhenom

    August 25, 2012 at 6:32 am

    @Kristine:
    Unlike Rmoney, Dubya could “talk the talk”.
    When Anne wrote:

    Romney can’t manage to fake that GOP-standard wink’n’nod “we’re special, not like those horrible Democrats” bonhomie.

    all I heard was Dubya in my head saying “You work 3 jobs? … Uniquely American! Isn’t it?”

  18. 18.

    JPL

    August 25, 2012 at 6:34 am

    @AnonPhenom: Mitt is so far removed from reality that he doesn’t understand that folks work three jobs.

  19. 19.

    Baud

    August 25, 2012 at 6:44 am

    @JPL:

    Mitt is so far removed from reality that he doesn’t understand that folks work three jobs.

    “Why did you decide to work three jobs? You should have gone into investment banking like I did. You make a good living, and you don’t have to pay as much in taxes. You should ask your parents for some money so you can get an MBA.”

  20. 20.

    kay

    August 25, 2012 at 6:45 am

    I keep hoping someone is writing a really good book, or great movie, about birthers.
    It’s an amazing story, and there are so many photographs and so much tape and so many supposedly serious, decent people who endorsed it or laughed it off or ignored it ( afraid of it).

    I think birthers and their allies should be infamous.

    Keep thinking about that Tea Party lady at a House member town hall who brought her “original” ( like it matters that it’s an original) birth certificate in a zip-lock baggie and was shaking and crying she was so mad.

    I just think it should be documented and collected and archived by someone great so people will read or watch it and it becomes classic and iconic, like some civil rights photos have.

    I think political media have made a deliberate decision to put it in a “campaign hijinks” box but it doesn’t belong there.

    Just the court documents alone ( and there are thousands) are amazing. I’d like it if kids knew about it 40 years from now, that it happened, and went on for years, and what the response was from (supposedly) decent people.

  21. 21.

    Bobby Thomson

    August 25, 2012 at 6:55 am

    @karen marie: Republicans have been Confederate revanchists since 1964 (or, at a minimum, 1994). They’ve just become increasingly transparent about it.

  22. 22.

    Amir Khalid

    August 25, 2012 at 6:55 am

    When I read that statement in the Guardian about firing Josh Trevino, I wondered what right-wing American blogger was doing with a blog called Malaysian Matters. So I asked my gud frend teh Google, and she turned up something interesting: Trevino has been — I do believe the term is “ratfucking” — Anwar Ibrahim and the opposition Pakatan Rakyat, apparently on behalf of the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition. Intriguing reports here and here.

  23. 23.

    SIA

    August 25, 2012 at 6:58 am

    Romney can’t manage to fake that GOP-standard wink’n’nod “we’re special, not like those horrible Democrats” bonhomie. It infuriates the very people he most needs to support him that he patently can’t tell the difference between Sean Hannity and Wolf Blitzer and the chairman of the tri-county RNC nominating committee and the counter monkey fetching Mitt’s hot chocolate.

    Excellent and so right.

  24. 24.

    WereBear

    August 25, 2012 at 7:01 am

    @karen marie: Wonderful piece, and it poses a great question: how can we get rid of that Confederate mindset? The one that says if they refuse to acknowledge their defeat, they are not “really” defeated?

    True both ways, I suppose.

  25. 25.

    Valdivia

    August 25, 2012 at 7:22 am

    @kay:

    so right Kay
    I truly have been so enraged and mad since yesterday.
    First that Romney said it.
    Then the stupid reaction by the media.
    Lastly Romney saying, oh we have to have humour in the campaign.

    Incredible that Weigel was one who totally got it from the beginning. Unlike the Village Idiots, who as you point out have decided it’s some cookie thing they have no idea what to do with so they sorta laugh it off.

    I am hoping for some serious documentary maker to tackle this in 10 years or so.

  26. 26.

    Princess

    August 25, 2012 at 7:27 am

    Serwer may be right. But I am still more inclined to think that Romney was in a wealthy white suburb of Detroit(am I right?) and saw a chance to remind his audience that the president is black. I have never met anyone as racist as wealthy white Detroiters. Admittedly, I am sheltered and don’t go out much. But they believe black people destroyed their city, and since it is still destroyed, they hold a big grudge.

  27. 27.

    kay

    August 25, 2012 at 7:47 am

    @Valdivia:

    Was it Jerry Seinfeld that shunned Donald Trump? Disinvited him to something or dared to speak against him?

    Jerry Seinfeld, a comic, understands that birthers are ABOUT race, and was the single high profile person who shunned Trump

    Morally and ethically bankrupt, the GOP, and 99% of political media.

    Trump could parade around in a KKK garb and they’d still be covering his press conferences and pretending he’s some sort of serious political force.

    Shunning is an expression of “I’ll play along this far, but no further”

    There is no line the GOP can cross, apparently.

    Can you imagine the uproar if Obama had said “no one ever asks me how many wives my grandfather had?” Which, by the way, judging from talking to wingnuts here, is a REAL issue for them, Romney’s religion.

  28. 28.

    Valdivia

    August 25, 2012 at 7:54 am

    @kay:

    This is the thing that truly burns me Kay.
    I think “A Gentleman’s Agreement” should be required viewing for the Village Idiots. They are ALL playing the role of Gregory Peck’s girlfriend, totally clueless about what is wrong with their actions and attitude, all high dungeon about their righteousness and purity of heart, laughing along nervously as they see Trump and now Romney do the birther dance, maybe a little uncomfortable, and yet they actively promote it and say nothing.

    Until they take a stand and shun the crazy instead of the both sides do it inanity, and the some people say bs, this country will be sick to its core.

  29. 29.

    El Cid

    August 25, 2012 at 8:00 am

    You don’t have to think Obama was born outside the USA to consider him effectively “not American,” foreign, alien, not at all the type of humanoid suitable to lead this nation.

    It’s perfectly okay for conservatives to be birthers without being birthers, to use birther references as signifiers to a rejection of Obama as truly American.

    He can be “Kenyan” whether or not he was born in Kenya, as he probably shares the imagined agenda of the “anti-colonialists” (i.e., somehow rebellious, separatist, subversive, white authority overthrowing) he’s related to and for whom he internally allies himself.

    He can be a practicing Christian and go to church and all, but they just know that when it counts he more identifies with Muslims who, what with their anti-Christianness (you know, real Christians like American white Southern Protestants) and brown skin and anti-American jihads, more represent what he worships.

    Birtherism isn’t just birtherism, it’s code. I have colleagues who don’t think he was born elsewhere and think the birth certificate stuff is silly, but they like hearing and making jokes about Obama being foreign and so forth.

  30. 30.

    1badbaba3

    August 25, 2012 at 8:00 am

    Ladies and Germs, the comedy stylings of Willard Romney! Give it up,y’all!

  31. 31.

    JoyfulA

    August 25, 2012 at 8:08 am

    @Amir Khalid: So Jerome Armstrong is working with Josh Trevino these days. How low can he go?

  32. 32.

    El Cid

    August 25, 2012 at 8:09 am

    And yet, which candidate is the more demonstrably, observably, alien?

    Mitt Romney makes most wealth-born stiff upper class prep-schooled selfish uptight white males look like jazz improv experimentalists by comparison.

    Most of your god-awfully, isolated, snotty rich types would know what a doughnut is.

    Most would refrain from mocking the cookies given to you at your folksy meeting with the folks you’re inviting on camera to a political discussion.

    Mitt Romney, replicant, alien, or alien replicant?

  33. 33.

    ottercliff

    August 25, 2012 at 8:18 am

    True, Willard is not being asked for his birth certificate. But he is being asked to show us his tax returns and unlike President Obama who produced the document in question, Romney continues to stonewall in disclosing his financial interests. So who is the “obfuscater” here and who seems to have something to hide?

  34. 34.

    Keith G

    August 25, 2012 at 8:30 am

    Actually Erza Klein, subbing in at Hardball, had a great take on this and then went on to have a great interview with TNC which touched here as well.

    I know many here feel that Klein and TNC are not (fill in the blank) enough, but that’s a silly way to evaluate the good work that they do.

  35. 35.

    pluege

    August 25, 2012 at 8:35 am

    the crux of the problem with America is that too many “cogs” see and accept the romney view as the natural order of the universe, i.e., they self-serf, and they’re afraid to consider anything else.

  36. 36.

    Schlemizel

    August 25, 2012 at 8:43 am

    @Keith G: NO NO NO NO NO!
    Thats just wrong. The world isn’t a complex place and people can’t see it differently than we do or think there are other ways to get to the ends or even slightly different ends. Those who do not agree 100% or who make mistakes in thought, word or deed are either obots or firebaggers and therefore should be dismissed at all times and degraded for sport.

    How long have you been coming to BJ? Its almost like you don’t know us.

  37. 37.

    Keith G

    August 25, 2012 at 8:52 am

    @Schlemizel: But that is exactly my point.

    I have seen the work of those two (and others) dismissed – even motives questioned – due to some variance from an expected line of reasoning. I have been around a long time and truthfully it’s been happening a bit more than is comfortable only during the last 2-2 1/2 years.

  38. 38.

    Keith G

    August 25, 2012 at 9:00 am

    @Schlemizel: Oopps. I am darting between work stations sans caffine and did not pick up your real meaning.

    Will stop for coffee ….now!

  39. 39.

    Lord Jesus Perm

    August 25, 2012 at 9:01 am

    Klein comes off as bizarrely awkward in the interview, IMO; I can’t kill him for that given the subject, but spending half of the interview time talking about how scared you are to talk about race does take away from the quality.

    TNC did a pretty nice job condensing the thesis for his Atlantic article (which is damn good).

    Also, Coates/Jay Smooth/Melissa Harris-Perry/W Kamau Bell are all on Chris Hayes right now.

  40. 40.

    kd bart

    August 25, 2012 at 9:09 am

    I use to think that GW Bush was the epitome of Tom Buchanan in The Great Gatsby. In actuality, it’s Mitt Romney.

  41. 41.

    cathyx

    August 25, 2012 at 9:10 am

    Can you imagine the uproar if Obama had said “no one ever asks me how many wives my grandfather had?” Which, by the way, judging from talking to wingnuts here, is a REAL issue for them, Romney’s religion.

    Yes, this would be a perfect comeback, if only he would do it. I know he would never though.

  42. 42.

    Bobby Thomson

    August 25, 2012 at 9:19 am

    @Keith G: Yes, it’s silly to compare people to objective standards! How silly that is!

  43. 43.

    Valdivia

    August 25, 2012 at 9:20 am

    @cathyx:

    I am very happy that he won’t. It would be stupidity of the first degree for Obama to get into a pissing match of this kind of stuff with Romney. Not only because it is what they want, but because Obama can win by killing Romney on the merits without bringing in the mormon thing.

  44. 44.

    Keith G

    August 25, 2012 at 9:22 am

    @Lord Jesus Perm: Klein has a brain/thought process that we need more of on TV, but he has yet to close in on the “presenter” skill set.

    His caution may be a bit much, but there are real mines in those mine fields.

  45. 45.

    Matt McIrvin

    August 25, 2012 at 9:23 am

    @Hill Dweller: This kind of race-trolling is Republican SOP. It’s been the stock in trade of people like Rush Limbaugh for decades. First you establish that liberals are PC maniacs who accuse peple of racism willy-nilly for no reason. Then you emit a constant stream of racist statements that your fans can semi-plausibly insist have an innocent interpretation. It works liberal observers up into a lather of outrage, and all you have to do then is observe that the crazy PC crowd are at it again. It’s the inverse of a dog whistle, since it’s outsiders who are supposed to recognize the racist subtext.

  46. 46.

    cathyx

    August 25, 2012 at 9:24 am

    @Valdivia: But it would only be a joke, just like Romney’s.

  47. 47.

    Bobby Thomson

    August 25, 2012 at 9:24 am

    @cathyx: That would be a terrible comeback, given that both candidates have a similar history in this regard.

  48. 48.

    xian

    August 25, 2012 at 9:24 am

    @cathyx: if only his own grandfather wasn’t also a polygamist…

  49. 49.

    xian

    August 25, 2012 at 9:33 am

    @kay: this.

    it ahould be like the red scare and the salem witch trials

  50. 50.

    shortstop

    August 25, 2012 at 9:34 am

    Always loved that line of DXM’s. But to your addition: I’m not sure that most of the cardboard-box volunteers are aware enough to be mortally insulted by Mitt’s failure to recognize their sacrifice–at least, most of them can’t put their finger on why they don’t like him, and put it down to one of his demographics rather than to his attitude.

  51. 51.

    Anya

    August 25, 2012 at 9:42 am

    @Keith G: I really don’t understand the way some react to Ezra Klein. What, people cannot have an outlook different than us? He’s very smart and thoughtful and I like him, even when I disagree with him. For instant I disagree with his characterization of Romney’s birther “joke” but that doesn’t mean I’ll call him a sellout and a villager.

    @Amir Khalid: What was the Guardian thinking when they hired the warmongering racist Josh Trevino? Really disappointing.

  52. 52.

    maody

    August 25, 2012 at 9:42 am

    Ta-Nehisi Coates’ essay resonates loudly w/me though Serwer’s is shorter and easier, which i guess is my point – i’m tired of shorter & easier. it’s the American Way, hey!

  53. 53.

    catclub

    August 25, 2012 at 9:47 am

    @kay: so how much do kids know about the blacklist era and red scare, where accusing a schoolteacher of being communist could cost a job?

    I bet they do not read The Crucible. My reading of that in about 10th grade (1973?) did not go into the real background in the 50’s rather than Salem mass 1690’s.

  54. 54.

    rikyrah

    August 25, 2012 at 9:51 am

    tired of folks trying to intellectualize this.

    those that peddle in birtherism are racists.

    Mitt Romney peddled in birtherism.

    Mitt Romney is a racist.

    stop trying to ‘explain’ easy shyt. I got tired of the MSM trying to ‘explain’ , instead of saying that this was nothing but pure-d RACISM of the first order.

  55. 55.

    Shawn in ShowMe

    August 25, 2012 at 9:51 am

    @Anya:

    When it comes to cultural issues, you can predict Ezra’s response ahead of time. He seems oblivious to the culture war. As long as that’s case, he will spend his career writing about trees and never seeing the forest.

  56. 56.

    maody

    August 25, 2012 at 9:58 am

    @rikyrah:

    this

  57. 57.

    sfHeath

    August 25, 2012 at 10:03 am

    Romney’s a coward even in his pandering.

  58. 58.

    sfHeath

    August 25, 2012 at 10:05 am

    He’s decided to be retroactively inoffensive.

  59. 59.

    Linda Featheringill

    August 25, 2012 at 10:06 am

    @Amir Khalid:

    Trevino:

    I guess it wasn’t enough to cause trouble in his home country, he had to spread the pain elsewhere.

    Sigh.

  60. 60.

    TS

    August 25, 2012 at 10:11 am

    @rikyrah:

    definitely – he sounds more like Sarah Palin every speech he makes – no substance, no policy, personal attacks.

  61. 61.

    bob h

    August 25, 2012 at 10:28 am

    I’ve always felt that when they go Birther/unAmerican we go after Mormonism in a low and dirty way.

  62. 62.

    Frankensteinbeck

    August 25, 2012 at 10:30 am

    @El Cid:
    And that is the human brain in action. They know as a fact that he’s American, that he was legitimately elected, that he’s smart and can talk without a teleprompter. Their feelings tell them that he’s a foreigner and a Muslim and not as smart as a white person. They act on their feelings, not the facts they know. There is no conflict in their brain between these two images. I’m afraid Wikipedia’s entry on Cognitive Dissonance is wildly misleading, focusing on obscure and disputed theories while glossing over the actual basic concept as the Benjamin Franklin effect.

  63. 63.

    Shawn in ShowMe

    August 25, 2012 at 10:39 am

    Oh, and Mitt is giving seven birthers the opportunity to speak at the convention.

    http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/08/24/743791/birther-convention/

    But according to Ezra, Mitt is not operating from the Lee Atwater playbook. Uh huh. We’re at war, son.
    How many “Anglo-Saxon tradition”, “angry”, “stealing”, “birth certificate” dog whistles does Mitt Romney have to make before young Ezra catches on?

  64. 64.

    Lord Jesus Perm

    August 25, 2012 at 10:42 am

    Joe Arpaio should make that eight.

  65. 65.

    jimmiraybob

    August 25, 2012 at 10:55 am

    Let’s see, Mitt (R-Anglo Saxon) is an expert at demolishing institutions to squeeze every last penny out for his investors. And lord know, there are Romney investors waiting to get their hands on US assets. Ryan (R-Ayn Rand) amd his wing of the GOP (R-Crazytown) want to dismantle the federal government. So far, an excellent fit.

    Then add in Romney’s big financial guy Sheldon Adelson, a casino owner and expert at taking people’s money. Among the three of them there doesn’t appear to be a nickel’s worth of empathy or concern for people outside of their circle and the bottom line. Then add in the TeaStupid.

    Nope. Never mind. For a minute there I thought I saw a troubling pattern.

  66. 66.

    ChrisNYC

    August 25, 2012 at 10:58 am

    Oh please stop. Stop trying to write race out of this.

  67. 67.

    Cacti

    August 25, 2012 at 11:00 am

    @Older_Wiser:

    Don’t forget that Myth grew up in a religion (actually not unlike most others) that considered people of color vastly “inferior” to whites. Like most churches, it “officially” changed its tune (in 1976, if I remember correctly) in order to win converts to its fantastical tenets.

    Mormonism is a bit different in the fact that its theology is stone cold racist. They may have changed their policy Re: people of African ancestry and their priesthood. They didn’t change what is taught in their scripture.

  68. 68.

    Older_Wiser

    August 25, 2012 at 11:07 am

    @Cacti: The most self-segregated institutions in the US are houses of worship.

  69. 69.

    danah gaz (fka gaz)

    August 25, 2012 at 11:09 am

    @Older_Wiser: Non-english speaking brown people outnumber me at my church by at least two to one.

    But yeah, it’s an exception that proves the rule.

  70. 70.

    Bob

    August 25, 2012 at 11:18 am

    There’s a lot of good insights here. Romney quite clearly was saying that no one has to ask whether he is an American – just look at me! I’m white!(and look at the other guy). It’s couched as his being in his home state where everyone knows him, and as being a joke referencing the birthers, but the jaw dropping message is, hey folks, he isn’t white, and I couldn’t be any whiter, you don’t have to worry about me.

    Denialism can get addictive. You’ve got your own world, you get confirmation from your peers and from respected faces in the media telling you you’re right and everything is going to be ok if you just fight the good fight, and the further you’ve bought into your world, the more you have at stake in it, the harder it will be to shake you out of it. No matter what happens, there is always a good explanation, and there is always a scapegoat. Obama is a foreigner, show me as many birth certificates as you want, it doesn’t even matter if they’re real or not, he’s still a foreigner, that’s the truth of the matter, but in fact they’re all fake. And it’s simple: Taxes are too high, there’s too much government regulation, welfare spending is out of control, they’re pulling America down, the Republicans can fix it, the Dems will make it worse. Let’s get angry. Rinse and repeat.

    I like the observation, that, whatever your economic situation, voting Republican makes you feel like you’re one of them. Clear-eyed, principled, moral, hard-working, informed, proud of your roots, sure of American exceptionalism, the genius of capitalism, pulling your own weight in this world, getting ahead by your own efforts, and surely destined for better things, but if not, still proud of who you are and of your country. And all that, you can get with a vote and you can be as angry as you want about all of it and plenty of the other to blame.

    What does voting Democratic mean? Is there a primal meaning to that these days? Surely there was back in the days of FDR, and there were those heady days of endless promise with Kennedy, the space program, civil rights progress, how we could bring everyone along on the American adventure, even the world. Then Nixon. After that being a Democrat has meant holding off those people from destroying the country, from destroying the very idea of facts, one election at a time.

  71. 71.

    Citizen Alan

    August 25, 2012 at 11:21 am

    @WereBear:

    The great tragedy of the Civil War was that the North handled Reconstruction exactly backwards. Compare Reconstruction to the Marshall Plan after WWII. In the later, the Allies spent lavishly to rebuild the German infrastructure, but they all tried, convicted and executed (or imprisoned for life in some cases) everyone they could catch who was plausibly connected to war crimes. Reconstruction was the exact opposite. The Southern infrastructure was allowed to rot to the level of a Third World nation, but the ruling Confederate elite were welcomed back into the fold and allowed to spend the rest of their lives ginning up a “Noble Lost Cause” mythology.

    Case in point: Just three years ago, Ole Miss finally changed its official mascot from an honest-to-God plantation owner to a black bear. In response, several members of the Mississippi legislature attempted to pass a bill to require Ole Miss to both change back to the discarded Colonel Reb mascot and to go back to playing Dixie as its fight song! Even better, there was also an ad hoc student/alumni group called the Colonel Reb Foundation that thought it prudent to protest the decision by going around to local bars, setting up a small portable gallows, and (and I am not making this up) lynching a stuffed black bear! What can anyone do about a mindset like that except point and laugh?

  72. 72.

    Bruce S

    August 25, 2012 at 11:27 am

    Oh come on – can’t people here see that poor Mitt Romney as a a member of that embattled minority, CEO-Americans, lives every day under the hateful shadow of the “Tax Returners?”

    Both sides do it! If that wasn’t true…cable news wouldn’t exist.

  73. 73.

    John PM

    August 25, 2012 at 11:28 am

    @Shawn in ShowMe: Janine Turner is a birther? I guess that explains why I have not seen her acting in anything recently.

  74. 74.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    August 25, 2012 at 11:29 am

    @catclub: Worse, they read The Crucuble and there’s no mention of the metaphor. Swear to g*d. I had HS kid on staff who was reading the play, and I mentioned the red scare element. She said, “no, we didn’t discuss that – are you sure?”

  75. 75.

    Roger Moore

    August 25, 2012 at 11:31 am

    @cathyx:

    Yes, this would be a perfect comeback, if only he would do it.

    Or if the answer were 1. Obama absolutely does not want to bring up polygamy, because the polygamists in his family tree were even closer to the present than the ones in Romney’s.

  76. 76.

    g

    August 25, 2012 at 11:45 am

    The richest man in the room is always funny – Mitt has been assured of that fact all his life.

  77. 77.

    Bruce S

    August 25, 2012 at 11:48 am

    The reality is that Romney has made it clear that, while he may claim not to espouse birtherism, he openly embraces it. His ass-kissing of the disgusting piece of crap known as Donald Trump is the most egregious evidence of this.

    Mitt Romney is worse than the birthers. He knows they are full of crap, delusional and driven by ugly impulses (his father actually faced a “birther” controversy due to his being born in Mexico, when George ran for President in’68) but he is so desperate to gain office that he will do or say anything, change any “belief”, descend deep into the realm of unhinged ideology or ally himself with any scum, no matter how low, dishonest or bigoted. Terrible man.

  78. 78.

    Ann Rynd

    August 25, 2012 at 12:15 pm

    I think that Mitt DOES know what it feels like to be marginalized. At Harvard he was rather not right with his useless BYU undergraduate degree, and his Michagan background, and not being an Epicopalian and with his pretty wife who didn ‘t go to Wellesley or Bryn Mawr and who revealed her ordinariness whenever she spoke, and being rather out of touch with Eastern WASP ways, Mitt probably felt excluded.
    And diminished. In a particular way that only a priveleged white guy who has the time and money and ambition to spend years at Harvard getting two degrees at the same time can feel. It’s a very exclusive sort of marginalization that Our Mitt felt.
    And it triggered his rich boy cruelty toward others who were excluded. And it never went away, even after he got to be governor of Mass-a-two-shits. You can still see it clearly in his cruelly handsome face.

  79. 79.

    Villago Delenda Est

    August 25, 2012 at 12:20 pm

    @Citizen Alan:

    What can anyone do about a mindset like that except point and laugh?

    I can think of a lot of other ways to deal with that mindset.

  80. 80.

    NancyDarling

    August 25, 2012 at 12:28 pm

    @John PM: So’s Pat Boone. Yes, he’s still alive. I guess his last century foray into heavy metal didn’t work so well for him. He’s taken to grifting birther conventions. He will be in Phoenix for one next week with his buddy, Arpaio. Don’t know if Janine will be there or not.

    And this appearance with Alice Cooper is what the dictionary had in mind when it defined ‘unseemly’.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eQuRvXGinM&feature=fvwrel

  81. 81.

    RaflW

    August 25, 2012 at 12:45 pm

    “Mitt keeps making it obvious that, for him, anyone not a white male worth at least a few million is just an interchangeable cog.”

    And yet nearly half the interchangeable cogs in America will vote for Willard. It does boggle the mind.

  82. 82.

    Porlock Junior

    August 25, 2012 at 1:01 pm

    @Citizen Alan:

    The great tragedy of the Civil War was that the North handled Reconstruction exactly backwards. Compare Reconstruction to the Marshall Plan after WWII…

    Thank you for this. How can anyone live as long as I have — and among smart and decent people — and not have seen this for him, my, self? Anyway, now I’ve got it.

  83. 83.

    Al

    August 25, 2012 at 1:02 pm

    Just did the google to confirm my memory of the number of white conservative pundits, columnists and did I mention they were white people pointing out that Obama would not have won without the black vote. You know, the people who apparently aren’t real americans who votes are as good as the white ones. If only real americans had been the ones to vote McCain would have won. I was expecting those writings to have been scrubbed by now but I guess they were proud of that shit.

  84. 84.

    TG Chicago

    August 25, 2012 at 6:31 pm

    Good column from Serwer.

    #Mittjokes

    “You know, I’ve never been arrested for driving while white! Ha. Ha. Ha.”

    “My parents sat me down for ‘the talk’ about the police when I was a young boy. They said that if I get stopped, I should tell them my dad is the Governor and can get them fired! Ha. Ha. Ha.”

    “When I asked for flexibility in welfare rules as governor, nobody ever accused me of loosening work requirements for those people. I wonder why! Ha. Ha. Ha.”

  85. 85.

    Jim Pharo

    August 26, 2012 at 9:55 am

    “voting Republican would set you off as a member of the elite”

    This is as true today as it was in the in the 19th century South, where poor farmers were perfectly happy to “vote against their own interests” and support the needs of the wealthiest plantation owners just because preserving slavery meant at least they were above someone. Hell, those rich jerks even got the poor saps to fight and die to save said jerk’s fortunes.

    It would be a mistake to think that this is all in the past and cannot recur now and in the future. We think of the the “conservative’ movement as some kind of weakened echo of a surely-dead past. It’s not. It’s openly committed to anarchy, is already very powerful, and has every reason to expect it will increase its power and prestige. It’s also very comfortable with violence.

    These people aren’t going away. Unless and until they are confronted publicly and defeated, they remain a threat to our society.

Comments are closed.

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  1. Mitt Romney and the white male “Southern Strategy” voting base | Under the Mountain Bunker says:
    August 26, 2012 at 11:00 am

    […] — Romney, Avatar of Rich White Male Privilege […]

  2. Mitt Romney goes birther says:
    August 26, 2012 at 5:31 pm

    […] Laurie feels that the privilege Romney feels he has is the key here. Romney, as a wealthy white male born to a […]

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