UNLIMITED GOP 2012 PRIMARY CANDIDATE THREAD

[tyrannosaurus vex]

Another leaked tape out today, showing Romney's, uh, imaginative view of Middle Eastern politics.

And by that, I mean fantastical plots of Iran asking Hezbollah to smuggle a dirty bomb into the USA, and how all Palestinians are committed to the destruction of Israel.

Just watched it, Upworthy have it with a transcript for anyone interested.
I was very distracted by how he seems to use "nation" to refer to what I think of as a "state".

We Americans like to pretend that we are still a union of various technically complete States. In practice, we are more or less provinces, except we allow rednecks to make a lot of rules in their respective provinces.

Balls.  We're 50 big counties, all adoring the emperor.

Well yeah, right now, with the SOCIALIST KENYAN in office. But that'll all change when we elect the MORMON. Just you wait and see.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Another leaked tape out today, showing Romney's, uh, imaginative view of Middle Eastern politics.

And by that, I mean fantastical plots of Iran asking Hezbollah to smuggle a dirty bomb into the USA, and how all Palestinians are committed to the destruction of Israel.

Just watched it, Upworthy have it with a transcript for anyone interested.
I was very distracted by how he seems to use "nation" to refer to what I think of as a "state".

We Americans like to pretend that we are still a union of various technically complete States. In practice, we are more or less provinces, except we allow rednecks to make a lot of rules in their respective provinces.

Balls.  We're 50 big counties, all adoring the emperor.

Well yeah, right now, with the SOCIALIST KENYAN in office. But that'll all change when we elect the MORMON. Just you wait and see.

A CLOSED MIND GATHERS NO HERESIES.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

Another leaked tape out today, showing Romney's, uh, imaginative view of Middle Eastern politics.

And by that, I mean fantastical plots of Iran asking Hezbollah to smuggle a dirty bomb into the USA, and how all Palestinians are committed to the destruction of Israel.

Just watched it, Upworthy have it with a transcript for anyone interested.
I was very distracted by how he seems to use "nation" to refer to what I think of as a "state".

We Americans like to pretend that we are still a union of various technically complete States. In practice, we are more or less provinces, except we allow rednecks to make a lot of rules in their respective provinces.

Balls.  We're 50 big counties, all adoring the emperor.

Well yeah, right now, with the SOCIALIST KENYAN in office. But that'll all change when we elect the MORMON. Just you wait and see.

A CLOSED MIND GATHERS NO HERESIES.

Yeah and an open mind lets in the rats.

[Verbal Mike]

AIPAC throws Romney under a bus. Never thought I'd see the day.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

ANNNNND Romney's lost everbody but guys like this.

[Cain]

As Daniel Larison points out, this speaks to a deep contradiction in Romney's (and to an extent, all Movement Conservatives) worldview:

Conservatives are always complaining about elites that look down them and have no respect for them, so they should have no difficulty recognizing unvarnished elite contempt as unmistakable as this [Romney's statements].

These comments also reflect Romney's political ineptitude. A significant portion of the 47% that don't pay income tax were already going to vote for him. They aren't out of reach, and they aren't going to vote for Obama "no matter what." Many of them would probably never vote for Obama, and their reasons might have nothing to do with taxes or benefits. They are already on his side, and Romney doesn't even seem to know it. What makes the remarks even less defensible is that Romney should want as few Americans paying taxes as possible. Not paying income tax isn't a gateway to government dependency. It's supposed to represent relief from government.

Taxes are BADWRONG but not paying taxes is even more badwrong.  Yeah, not exactly a logical worldview we are talking about here, is it?

[Verbal Mike]

I think the key to that contradiction is that this type of "conservatism" is based on utilizing the fact that people are more comfortable looking down on others than being looked down on by them. The facts don't matter a bit, you just have to tell people that they're better than That Other Guy, for whatever reason (race, income, culture, education, whatever) and they feel you're on their side. It's a sickeningly simple method for creating false consciousness, and the GOP is nothing if not the part of false consciousness when it comes to these things.

[Cain]

Oh, I agree with Corey Robin's thesis, that conservatism is essentially a project aimed at preserving and extending private domains of hierarchy against formal and political equality.

But these kinds of things are still useful.  Not at least because it allows you to play games with conservatives, such as "what is worse: people not paying taxes, or people having to pay taxes at all", which can cause hilarious flare-ups and cognitive dissonance.  Of course, we all know the real answer, the worst thing is poor people not being shat on continually by their betters, but by pointing out the logical contradiction in the formal statements allows us to discern the underlying positions.

[Internet Jesus]

Taxes are BADWRONG but not paying taxes is even more badwrong.  Yeah, not exactly a logical worldview we are talking about here, is it?

It's welfare queens driving Cadillacs and strapping young bucks buying T-Bones with food stamps for a post-racial America.  On the one hand, it's at least a step forward, because without the overt racial component the listener is free to imagine whomever they like.  Their brother in law who cheats on his taxes and has been milking a bogus workmanship comp claim for the better half of the last decade, for example, rather than the black family across the street.

On the other hand it's a step backward, because it separates the 47% of "parasites" from the tax implications and assigns them membership in a party that they don't actually belong to (seriously, one of the bigger chunks of the 47% are senior citizens, and they've been consistently in the Romney camp).

Personally though, I'm looking forward to posting Romney's comments from a few months ago "Take your hate filled campaign of division ... Back to Chicago" alongside of his 47% comments.  It has potential to drive a few folks over the edge.  Mostly because the wingnuts I know we're all aflutter over the former comments.

[Cain]

That is a good one.

Incidentally, while searching my own archives, I came across this wingnut fanfic from 2008, projecting what 2012 would be like.  Read it and weep

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/item_oD1Vj1azKIKqfKehlNjjbI/1

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

ANNNNND Romney's lost everbody but guys like this.

That song was hilarious!

[Verbal Mike]

That is a good one.

Incidentally, while searching my own archives, I came across this wingnut fanfic from 2008, projecting what 2012 would be like.  Read it and weep

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/item_oD1Vj1azKIKqfKehlNjjbI/1

It reads like tongue-in-cheek now... Weird stuff.

[Suu]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251101160

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Romney says Hispanic voters are a threat to our nation.

But that doesn't stop him from using spray tan to look brown on Univision.

[Verbal Mike]

The spray tun stuff is hillarious. Looking a little desperate, even, which makes my ol' heart sing.

But the "we're in trouble" comment struck me as not racist at all. He was just saying that the party's in trouble, and that for him that means the whole country is in trouble, since he (claims to) believe that the country is in trouble in the hands of the Democrats. But I have no problem with the comment being misinterpreted and called racist, since he probably is, and a lot of his party definitely is – if the elections go to the Republicans like they did in 2000 and 2004, y'all are in trouble as a nation, and all of us are in trouble as a human race.