 by Chris HayesStory of the Week, Up w/ Chris Hayes |
COMMENTARY
The video of Mitt Romney talking to donors that Mother Jones posted last week is an incredible artifact from an entire culture and civilization that exists in our midst, but which we hardly ever get to see: the world of the high-end donor. And, whoo boy it is not pretty. The first thing that jumps out is that a lot of the questions are really inane.
In fact, I almost feel sorry for Mitt Romney having to sit there and politely smile and nod as donors pick through their salad and tell him that what he really needs to do to win is "take the gloves off" or "show your face more on tv"—something he's been doing more or less non-stop.
The folks in the room all but advise Romney to simply tour around the country reading passages of Ayn Rand novels out loud at his campaign rallies and hectoring the idiotic masses to bow before their obvious superior. Romney, who is many things, but not a total fool, gently explains that that probably is not the best way to go about attempting to win over the Obama voters he needs to be elected. Almost none of the advice Romney gets during the tape is very good, some of it's terrible.
That's not novel, of course, everyone who watches politics closely thinks they have the secret insight that will win the election. Unlike the millions of other political junkies and backseat drivers, this small coterie of folks, by sole virtue of their wealth, gets to impose their invaluable insights on the actual candidate. It would be like the head coach of the Giants, Tom Coughlin, having to spend most of the week between games meeting with the opinionated fans who call into sports talk radio with their theories about how the Giants should be blitzing on every down, or lining up two quarterbacks under center.
This is the power of money not just in politics, but in society more broadly: the power to make people listen to your ideas no matter how dumb or uninformed. The other thing that stood out to me was just how under siege, persecuted, and victimized these extremely wealthy people appear to feel.
Keep in mind we're talking about a fundraiser that cost $50,000 a plate. Fifty thousand dollars also happens to be the median household income in the U.S. So the kind of wealth you need to have to be in the room with Romney is the kind of wealth that means you can just pony up as much money as many Americans make in a year to listen to Mitt Romney trash talk the very people who make in a year the same amount you just ponied up for dinner.
And what you hear from them is the same kind of whining that was the central theme of the Republican Convention: we're away from our families five days a week. I'm away from my four girls five days a week and my wife. Which made me think of this from Reservoir Dogs:
Steve Buscemi: You know what this is? It's the world's smallest violin playing just for the waitresses.
Except, you know, instead of waitresses insert busy plutocrats. Because these same plutocrats are enjoying possibly their best run ever since the financial crisis, nay since, perhaps, the roaring twenties! The Dow is way up, corporate profits are near record highs, taxes are near record lows, wages are stagnating, unions are fighting for survival and 8% unemployment means that employers have a constant ready supply of excess labor, which keeps wages and demands down. More or less a capitalist paradise.
The Koch brothers, to choose just one example, have seen their own net worth nearly DOUBLE, from $32 billion to $62 billion under the tyrannical, socialist, re-distributive regime of Barack Hussein Obama.
And yet despite the fact that Obama has managed a recovery that has been exceptionally good to them, Wall Street is incensed that anyone would call them fat cats or sign new financial regulation. In almost every way conceivable they inhabit an alternate universe. And everyone's pretty frank about that.
For instance, they ask him several questions about foreign policy, and Romney complains that voters in general don't care about foreign policy, so he doesn't get to talk about it that much on the campaign trail. This is probably because middle class voters are so concerned about economic security it crowds out nearly everything else.
But that's the point. Extremely wealthy people are not a very good representation of the voting population at large. They have very different politics, positions and priorities than the mass of voters. This cashes out in a very concrete way that profoundly affects our politics.
Political Scientists Benjamin Page, Larry Bartels and Jason Seawright have been studying the divergence between public opinion in general and the opinions of the wealthiest 1% and found that—surprise—they diverge on most issues. For instance, on this statement: "The federal government should spend whatever is necessary to ensure that all children have really good public schools they can go to"... 87% of the general public agrees, while only 35% of the wealthy do. "Our government should redistribute wealth by heavy taxes on the rich." 52% of the general public agrees, only 17% of the wealthy do. "Favor cuts in spending on domestic programs like Medicare, education, and highways in order to cut federal budget deficits." 27% of the general public does, while 58% of the wealthy do.
And this gets us to what I've become convinced is the most pernicious effect of big money on our politics. It's not that lots of money can buy elections, though sometimes that's true. It's not that campaign contributions function as a quid pro quo, chits to be cashed in when legislation is being considered, though that's also often true. It's that every single person running for high office in America is forced to spend the vast majority of their time around one group of people and one group only: wealthy people. That's who they talk to, and listen to all day long, day in and day out, every day for months and years and decades. It's an incredibly warping effect.
Imagine a world in which every minimum wage worker in America is given a golden ticket, like the ones in Willie Wonka's Chocolate Factory. And imagine a law that required TV stations to only take those golden tickets as payment for campaign advertising time. A world in which candidates would have to spend all the time they now spend with the folks on that video with the people who work at drive-throughs and clean bathrooms. And imagine the kinds of questions they would get, the stories and jokes they would hear. Many hours a day, day in and day out. The world that the candidate would be forced to inhabit. Imagine what our politics would look like as a result. Maybe things would be radically different, maybe they'd be more similar to the status quo than I'd like to admit. But one thing is for sure.
Mitt Romney sure as hell wouldn't get up in front of a room of home healthcare workers, people who are, in many states, making minimum wage or just a little more to change bed pans and clean up blood and vomit—and tell the people in front of him that they're a bunch of indolent, shiftless moochers who won't take responsibility for their lives becuase they don't pay income taxes. I don't think even Mitt Romney is that politically inept.
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I would like to see SNL do a skit in which President Obama is in a room of minimum wage fundraisers--single moms pushing strollers, fast food workers, and telemarketers. A coffee can of loose change for donations is passed around and the food would be catered by a taco trailer. Obama would then claim that he is unable to get the GOP % of the voters because they are racist or think he is a Muslim who was not born in the United States.
I would like to see SNL do a skit in which President Obama has a fundraiser with minimum wage workers such as single moms with strollers and retail service personnel. A coffee can of loose change would be passed around for donations and the caterer would be a taco trailer. Obama would then tell them that he cannot get the GOP % of voters because they think he is a racist and/or a Muslim who wasn't born in the United States.
This Sunday's Story of the Week was simply brilliant and well articulated. It is worthy of being framed and posted on the wall for all to read. We have been fooled for so long and the effect of money in politics has been so gradual and hidden that it is shocking when one finally realizes what has been going on. Congratulations to Chris Hayes for stating it so boldly, plainly and completely!
A heartfelt but sober message to the White American Middle Class…
Let us start with our fears, an article in the Daily Titan (Torres, Renee, Daily Titan, November 16, 2011) Rich Benjamin, Ph.D. sums these fears up best. "White Flight" is occurring today. In a room overflowing with people, Rich Benjamin, Ph.D., brought this ongoing phenomenon to the attention of students and faculty (California State University Fullerton) Tuesday. People stood in the back and sat on the floor.
Benjamin is a journalist, scholar, social and political commentator, author and a senior fellow at Demos, a non-partisan national think tank.
Benjamin's website explains the premise of his novel on "Searching for Whitopia," Whitopia being a combination of "White" and "Utopia" and to describe the growth of white flight.
"By 2042, whites will no longer be the American majority," said Benjamin. "A related, less reported trend is that as people of color, especially immigrant populations, increase in cities and suburbs, more and more whites are living in small towns and exurban areas that are predominately, even extremely, white."
This my friends is the big PINK ELEPHANT in the room. It is this fear that makes an intelligent and thoughtful white Middle Class electorate vote "against" it own economic priorities, interests and wellbeing. Estimates are that 80% of minorities, Hispanics, Blacks, Gays, Women, Asians, Indians, etc. will be voting for President Obama. My guess is that they are not voting for President Obama because he is a Black Man, but they are voting "THEIR" Middle Class economic priorities, interest and wellbeing. The fear of a Non-White Nation has no effect on their vote. They can freely choose to vote for American Middle Class economic interests without racial bias.
The Republicans have used this fear in White America to their advantage, but know full well that the time will come when the numbers will not bear this strategy a winning one. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham told us everything we need to know about the Republican Party when he made this statement during the RNC: "We're not generating enough angry White males..." The ARITHMETIC bears that out; in 1984 Non-College Whites comprised 61 percent of all voters. In 2008 they comprised 39 percent.
Much is made of the Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court, but honestly if the American Middle Class were "UNITED" regardless of color or race, we really could take our Country back and make it work for us. Minorities are voting for policies that will benefit all in the American Middle Class; Education, Social Security, Medicare, Veterans Benefits, The Affordable Care Act, Disability, Clean air, water and food safety, and the safety net etc. "All" benefit from these policies apart from their race, religion, sexual orientation or ethnicity.
Stop for one moment my fellow Caucasian Americans, and think about the Republican Party's veiled promises and let's actually see what those solutions look like in BLACK and WHITE. Their mantra is "WE WILL TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK" I am assuming they mean back to a time when Whites were the majority and all laws favored them. Is this a "REALISTIC" goal for a US political party in 2012? Yes you could take this Country back, but it would entail, taking voting rights away from ALL Minorities including Women the full repeal of the Voting Rights Act; it would mean a mass round-up and forced deportation of "ALL" 11 million un-documented immigrants by our military and police; it would take the repeal of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, revoking EQUAL PROTECTION; it would take the rescinding of all anti-discrimination laws in employment, education and housing so that you could work and live in an environment segregated from all Minorities the implementation of apartheid in the USA; and God forbid some crazy horror of a human-being would suggest ETHNIC CLEANSING. No my friends this is NOT an HONORABLE or CHRISTIAN goal worthy of Caucasians. It is shameful and dangerous.
The Republican Party is playing with fire, but many in the past and not so distant past have done the same and it has ALWAYS been their undoing. There are Statesman Good and Just that are White, it is these White Males not the angry ones that have made this Country Great! George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodor Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Lyndon B. Johnson, George HW Bush, William Jefferson Clinton and Abraham Lincoln, all White and all Statesman and all have done much for Whites to be proud of. Which White Male are you, the STATESMAN or the ANGRY WHITE MALE?
It is time to let it go. This fear is doing NOTHING for the White American Middle Class, no good at all. It is time to undo the shackles of racism and to build a better future for the AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS. It is time to exercise American Values, United We Stand, and Divided We Fall.
We have things to do, Mitt Romney has let us know in his SECRET VIDEO what he stands for, and it is not the priorities, interests and wellbeing of the American Middle Class. Quite to the contrary he looks down on 47% of us, Seniors, Veterans, Students, the Disabled, the poor and the sick. Jesus Christ never turned his back on the poor, the sick or the disenfranchised; he spoke for them, Proverbs 29:7 "The righteous is concerned for the rights of the poor; the wicked does not understand such concern." It is you the White American Middle Class that appropriately reminds America of its Judeo/Christian Values…Proverbs 29:7 is from the Holy Bible it is a 'Christian Value"; racial segregation, injustice, greed and avarice are NOT, those things are IMMORAL!
I am asking White Males to choose the better part of humanity in your nature…Reject Republican Senator Lindsay Grahams cynical and negative portrait of your race…
The future of Democracy is still in the hands of GOOD and JUST White Males. Three White Men that I have come to admire and that INSPIRE me to be a better man; Vice President Joe Biden for his empathy of the Middle Class struggle, Chris Matthews for his moral compass and Lawrence O'Donnell for his relentless fight for justice and fairness. They are fighting the good fight as are many others...Like Chris Hayes
Our President has worked hard in the past 3 years to make things better for us and that is the "US" of all races and ethnicities including Whites. It is time for the American Middle Class to "UNITE" and fight for this good man BARACK OBAMA, the President has done what he can to be our Champion, the Champion of the American Middle Class regardless of what color we are!!!! We must vote "OUR" own economic interest, priorities and wellbeing. Let us work together and build a Strong Middle Class Utopia…"TOGETHER" we have the strength in numbers…but it will take "WE THE PEOPLE"…idealism maybe, but isn't that who we are a Country of ideals?
My sincerest apologies for saying it so frankly… May God Bless us "ALL"…
Hey Chris:
Romney said his job is not to worry about the 47%
"Romney shrugged" [get it?]
; )
Romney could not be a John Galt as he lacks the integrity. lol
"...and tell the people in front of him that they're a bunch of indolent, shiftless moochers who won't take responsibility for their lives becuase they don't pay income taxes. I don't think even Mitt Romney is that politically inept."
Oh, but he did, just not in the flesh. Thanks to the way the world really works.