Romney’s Dependency on Rightwing Cliché and Errors of Historical Fact Won’t Deliver Him (Political) Recovery
My experience has taught me that government works best when it creates the space for individuals and families to pursue success and achieve great things. Economic freedom is the only force that has consistently succeeded in creating sustained prosperity and lifting people out of poverty. It is why our economy rose to rival those of the world’s leading powers — and has long since surpassed them all.
The dreamers and the entrepreneurs, not government, built this economy, and they can once again make it strong.
My course for the American economy will encourage private investment and personal freedom. Instead of creating a web of dependency, I will pursue policies that grow our economy and lift Americans out of poverty.
My five-point plan will deliver the economic recovery we’ve all been waiting for and the jobs millions of Americans still need. This can be more than our hope; it can be our future. And it can start this November with your vote.
— Romney: I’ll deliver recovery, not dependency, Mitt Romney, USA Today op-ed, today
Of all the many oddities of Romney’s cartoonish campaign and cartoonish campaign persona, the strangest, I think, is his penchant for stating loopy conclusions based upon a single fact that does not even conceivably support the conclusion. This tactic (if that’s what it is) has been the hallmark, the very essence, of his campaign.
Last week I questioned whether Romney was a habitual liar or, instead, simply God-awful stupid. In light of the events of this week—the infamous surreptitiously-filmed fundraising address about the 47% of Americans whom Romney will never be able to convince should take personal responsibility for their lives and their care and who correlate precisely with the 47% of the electorate who are Obama supporters, and his “doubling down” on those comments since release of the video—I think it’s clear that while some of Romney’s incessant wild extrapolations and conflations are part of bizarre campaign tactic, some of the most important ones are not. They are, rather, the result of jaw-dropping stupidity—an apparent genuine inability to understand the meaning of single facts and to distinguish between entirely separate concepts.
Not least of these, of course, is that Americans whose income is too low under the tax code for them to owe income tax necessarily don’t take personal responsibly for their lives and for their care, and that since the percentage of Americans who don’t pay income tax is about the same as the percentage of voters who, polls show, support Obama, virtually all people who don’t pay income taxes are Obama supporters, and virtually no Obama supporters pay income taxes. Warren Buffett must have an income too low to require him to pay income taxes.
Also not least is Romney’s inability to distinguish between a plan—specifics, supported by empirical evidence—and ideological clichés that consist entirely of generic declarations and supposed results. Placing bullet-point indicators in front of five such declarations doesn’t transform them into a plan. If he actually has a plan—specifics, supported by empirical evidence—then he should disclose it. Economic plans are, after all, not tax returns, although it’s no longer surprising that Romney can’t distinguish the two.
But most disconcerting is Romney’s out-of-nowhere, patently false insistence, repeated time and again, that “our economy rose to rival those of the world’s leading powers — and … long since surpassed them all” during a period of lower taxes on the wealthy than we have now—a period of a less-progressive tax code and more inequality. In other words, during a time when we had, according to him, more economic freedom, than we do now.
It’s long past time for the Obama campaign to educate the public about 20th century American economic and political history. And to challenge Romney’s intellectual capacity to recognize what facts he needs to know before making important assertions, proposals and decisions, and to understand what those facts indicate or don’t.
Until very recently, I had presumed that Romney was only pretending to think that ideological bromides were actual facts. I know better now. And the most effective ads that the Obama campaign can run will show Romney for the intellectual lightweight that he is.
“the most effective ads that the Obama campaign can run will show Romney for the intellectual lightweight that he is.”
Yeah, that always works with the American electorate…
Well, you have a point, Sandwichman, but Romney claims to be a data-driven fixer who will fix the economy. Seems unlikely, given that he can’t even accurately interpret clear, simple data and other facts and extrapolate something logical or even plausible.
Beverly
i really hate to be arguing with you all the time because i really am on your side.
But Romney is a politician. He says what his voters and sponsors want to hear. If those things are not true, or don’t even make sense, he is hardly the only one…on either side of the aisle.
That said, your own bullet points resonate just fine with this voter.
You’re overlooking a few things:
1) He says stupid things because people are so willing to believe them.
2) Obama is still black.
3) Voter suppression.
4) The right wing noise machine is doubling down on his remarks, full score.
So – are we screwed, or not?
Oh, BTW – and did I remember to say Obama is still black?
JzB
Sorry but Romney acts just like a CEO. Everything can be explained in soundbites. A discussion longer than a page is too long. Bullet points provide the outline for the flunkies to fill in. Powerpoint presentations are too long if there are more than 5 slides. The CEO gives grand hand waving ideas that everyone else is supposed to figure out and make work.
I have worked for 5 CEOs and they all run the same way. I think there is a variation of the Peter Principle which says: The lightest weight brain rises the highest because the owner seems so attuned to the music of the spheres,
Jazz:
Black man in a white house . . . “The White House.” There is no equating how this must get to some and maybe many.
Carol Ann:
Ditto, except for the Germans. They love detail and the more the merrier.
Well, y’all–Romney can be a CEO first, then a politician, then a governor, and anything he wants to be. It is we down here in the lower 47% who are stuck down here with more mundane daily lives. Lucky to have anything, what with our torpid natures and inadequate skills.
I’ve had bosses and peers who are like Romney–golden boys who magically get everything they want. This one wants to be President. Woohoo! Easy peasy! Just tell ’em what they want to hear and voila! President it is!
Or he would be if he had even the meager social skills of a George W. Bush. It’s possible Romney can still pull it off. Even if he has absolute contempt for them, the 47% he so obviously loathes may still vote for him–or just enough of them to elect him President, despite everything.
Well, it would help if the voter suppression efforts the GOP has underway were less successful than they hope. A lot of the 47% are little old ladies (LOL’s) and unfortunately they won’t be able to vote if the voter ID laws have the desired effect. Oh, well, Gov. Romney. Hey–better luck next time. You are our first serial Presidential candidate. I’m sure your friends wish you well. NancyO
It’s my abiding belief that there is an inverse correlation between the metastasizing number of MBAs in the upper-management echelons of corporate America and the actual intelligence with which corporate America has been run, Carol Ann. Don’t know how all those American corporations in the postwar era managed so well, before the requirement that their CEOs be MBAs.
Another weird thing. Romney won’t present a plan and says he has. But he and all Republicans insist that Obama hasn’t presented a plan for jobs when he did one year ago (they blocked it) or a plan to cut the deficit as he did 13 months ago (a horrible plan) and they said no.
I’m pretty sure they are not that dumb. Blocking a plan then saying it was never proposed sounds like a lie not a mistake which even Rick Perry himself could honestly make.
beverly
i wholly agree with you about MBA’s. time was, i think, when a businessman knew something about the business. now they just hire an MBA who knows about how all businesses are supposed to work.
“Of all the many oddities of Romney’s cartoonish campaign and cartoonish campaign persona, the strangest, I think, is his penchant for stating loopy conclusions based upon a single fact that does not even conceivably support the conclusion. This tactic (if that’s what it is) has been the hallmark, the very essence, of his campaign.”
If you do not have an actual argument, a non-sequitur will do. Non-sequiturs can be persuasive. They teach that in law school, right? 😉
While I think that Romney’s elitist gaffe has hurt him a lot, remember that the controversy will probably energize his supporters. This is not a TKO.
Min
i don’t know if they teach non-sequiters in law school.
except by example. you don’t want to read any Supreme Court decisions if you care about logic.
Non sequiters are very effective arguments.