Toward a softer, more discreet Objectivist racism
by David Atkins
It's been a hoot to watch Republicans squirm uncomfortably as Mitt Romney doubles down on calling a majority of Americans grifters and looters looking for free welfare gifts. They know it's a lie, they know it's terrible politics. But their trickle-down economic policies and anti-spending rhetoric depend on its being true.
Which leaves the fascinating and hilarious phenomenon of arch-right conservatives at blogs like FreeRepublic supporting Mitt Romney of all people as a defender of the conservative flame, while guys like Haley Barbour and the once-idolized Bobby Jindal are dismissed as RINOs.
The problem is that while Republicans are considering some sop to immigration reform as a policy change (a change that incidentally helps big business, which is partly why Bush and Rove wanted it years ago in opposition to their nativist base), on core economics they still want to believe that billionaires are heroic John Galts while the rest of us are parasites. They'd just appreciate it if their most visible leaders would stop saying that so explicitly. As Jamelle Bouie writes at The Plum Line:
There are two things worth noting. First, there’s no doubt that Romney is speaking about the nonwhite members of Obama’s coalition — with all the ugliness that entails. But none of this is incongruent with Romney’s campaign for president. Throughout the summer, and well into the fall, Romney argued that Obama was “gutting” welfare reform and “giving out checks” in order to “shore up his base.” Moreover, he repeatedly criticized Obama for giving out “free stuff,” echoing the “makers and takers” rhetoric of the Republican Party writ large.
Indeed, this is why Bobby Jindal’s criticism of Romney rings hollow. For the current GOP, including its governors, Romney’s position — that the government shouldn’t provide access to health care — is completely anodyne. It’s why Jindal and other GOP governors have opted not to create state exchanges for the Affordable Care Act, or agree to the law’s Medicaid expansion.
To wit, this summer, in explaining his decision to reject Medicaid funds, Jindal declared that Republicans need to “repeal Obamacare” so that they can “end this culture of dependence.” If there’s a problem with Romney’s statement, it was the language, not the sentiment. At the moment, there’s little indication that Republicans — especially the ones criticizing Romney — have rethought their commitment to the policies offered in this election, few of which speak to the actual concerns of ordinary Americans.
This is what they believe. It's what they've always believed. They believed it when Ronald Reagan was calling Medicare the end of American freedom. They still believe it. It started as full-on racism, and morphed into a more general Objectivism as open racism became increasingly unacceptable, and as trickle-down policies created increasing economic insecurity among Americans of all races.
It's just that there are now just enough people in America who have woken up to the lies (mostly the young, the non-white, unmarried women, and the well educated) that it's started to be really bad politics.
Unfortunately for Republicans, there's not a lot they can do. Most of their base buys into the Ayn Rand Objectivist worldview hook, line and sinker. They can't walk away from it so easily without generating turnout problems and third-party challengers.
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