“It’s a tragedy, a human tragedy, that the middle class in this country by and large doesn’t believe that the future will be better than the past,” he said. “We haven’t seen rising incomes over decades.”
“The rich have gotten richer, income inequality has gotten worse and there are more people in poverty than ever before under this president,” he added.
I can’t tell you, folks, how tired I am of always being so right. How many times did I say that the correct message to be pushing was “Obama dramatically improved the economy”? First of all, because that’s the truth. And second of all, because the message you so adore and that I quoted above is very easily co-opted by the Republicans in 2016. Is there any doubt in anybody’s mind that if a Republican president achieved, in terms of the economy, what Obama has in his presidency we would be hearing it celebrated and yelled from the rooftops all day and every day?
In case there are people who have been asleep for the past two days, the “he” in the quote above is Mitt Romney. Prepare to hear more of the same in the coming two years from overfed billionaires who have suddenly discovered the words that will make the entire country go weak in the knees.
We could have avoided this if we had gotten over our profound need constantly to feel sorry for ourselves and accepted that the recession was over and it was cause for celebration. It is highly likely that your love of apocalyptic thinking guaranteed us a Republican in the White House come 2016.
We had the 2016 election in our collective pockets until you had to go and piss it all away with your insistence that anything short of paradise is beneath you and any achievement that doesn’t bring your directly into heaven on Earth is not an achievement but an offense to your sensibilities. And now this wave of infantile resentment will be exploited to carry a Bush or a Romney into the White House. Good job! The enjoyment you must have derived from ridiculing any suggestion that the economy was improving must have totally been worth it.
Oh well. At least, it will be good for Ukrainians.
Clarissa's Blog 
AHAHAHAHAHA.
I don’t get your gloom and doom over other people’s gloom and doom. This is Mitt Romney. The people who care about “income inequality” and “flat wages” don’t vote Republican and don’t register as Republicans.
Of course a Republican with the same economy would scare people by telling them “I saved the US from becoming Greece which elected fascists. Fascists are the same as Nazis. Therefore I saved America from Nazis all over again. Also: Bin Laden is still dead.”
No, if we get a Republican president it will be because voter turnout is low and the only people who go out to vote are cranky fanatics interested in stopping Shariah law abortion vending machines from taking over America and destroying guns.
I got a phone call from an organization I once supported. “We need your money because the Republican congress is trying to do [this horrible thing] now!” I declined because it’s just endless petitions and crises even if it’s factual.
For an election in which no incumbent is running for reelection, there’s no excitement at all. Are Republicans excited? I don’t even sense it. Do you sense it from Fox at the gym or your conservative colleagues?
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I don’t say these things lightly and I’m very rarely mistaken, so her is my analysis: until about 2 months ago the Democrats had this election in the pocket. Even until 3 weeks ago it was pretty much a done deal. But in that very short period of time 5hey allowed the Republicans to steal their best card from under their noses. And now they are fucked.
And yes, people who vote Republican do care about their stagnant wages and their economic prospects. Simplifying the political narrative to good guys vs evildoers is entertaining but not very productive.
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I disagree.
Ok, people care about their economic prospects and stagnant wages, but the blue collar workers who were very affected, do not use the language “income inequality”. None of these Republicans in the article are talking to voters right now, this is trolling. The people who habitually play the lottery want to to win because they’ll be rich if they win with vastly inequal incomes.
When people talk about the “economy” they think about their personal economy. Even with my absolutely fucked father complex, I know the economy is better for many people. I don’t see as many panhandlers and beggars and it’s not just because of municipal ordinances. The tooth whitening kiosks that went away at the beginning of the recession are back in the middle class mall. People bought lots of things — the mall was jammed and the news statistics supported this. My brother, who can barely read and has profound learning disabilities, found a job within three weeks. More people are looking for work that had previously stopped out of frustration. And people are leaving their old jobs to look for new ones. And these are people who don’t have a lot of education and aren’t white collar.
I started laughing because well, Mitt Romney, and if you’re right, well this is stupefying. Because people vote on the “economy” (meaning their personal one) on November 2 based on the last few months, not on the last eight years or “what was the economy like from the last election to a year and a half before the current one”.
It’s not so dire that the election was decided one way or another. 🙂
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Republicas definitely care about inequality. Now its certainly true at the MAIN FUNDERS of the republican party don’t care about inequality nearly as much as the MAIN FUNDERS of the democrats. But even your upper middle class and small business wealthy that are republicans care about inequality. What many of them want is for more equality, but not for the government to “redistribute”. Now, admittedly that may be difficult to happen, but there is a huge different. It is the resentment of the govt. transfer that galls those who are republicans (really upper middle class and blue collar for the most part). The key is PRE-TAX income distribution in my opinion. Because no one can (politically, morally or practically) complain, “hey its terrible that the average wage is going up without govt help!”. Right now about 50% of pre-tax income goes to the top 10% of americans. Business owners and the govt. (thru smart policies, happy to name a few if interested) and workers need to fight the battle to get that down to say 30%, and inequality would go back to 1970’s levels and we would have a pretty good society. That is a battle which can be won, and I believe should be. The redistribution battle is 10x messier and allows for much more corruption, which is why many fight it. However, there have been fundamental shifts in society in the last 40 years (globalization, technological advancement, deunionizatn etc, financialization of the economcy) which bring up valid doubts if it can occur. This analysis and topic is fundamental both to my current business and my world view so apologize for the long-winded response, but to Shakti and others, if you want to understand the republicans gripe it is with “forced redistributon”… it really is for the MOST part (of course there are some who disagree, but on the whole it the redistribution angle republicans broadly hate). Lastly, I get that for many blue collar workers “redistribution” may help them, but my take is they don’t like the idea of something to be handed to them,they want to “earn it”, which makes a lot of sense. So yeah they’d love to make 10k more a year, but they want their employer to pay them that, not the govt. Not saying that is realistic or not, but that is the driving force in my estimation.
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“The key is PRE-TAX income distribution in my opinion.”
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The psychology of the contemporary left: “Why can’t I go back to the womb state? You looked at me funny!”
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The psychology of the contemporary
leftright: “Why can’t I go back to the womb state? Your look scared me and now I have to shoot you before crawling back”LikeLiked by 1 person
Yeah, that is true enough.
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I’m looking forward to the inevitable bumper sticker …
I AM A WOMB STATE OF ONE
🙂
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The quintessential modern character–but they do not like to feel they are alone. They have this glib, overoptimistic notion that whatever you’ve sweated your guts out to achieve, they could manage the same on the basis of a lucky strike.
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This is absolutely precious …
How quickly Americans forget that Mitt Romney was a “vulture capitalist” when he led Bain Capital through one leveraged arbitrage after another.
Wasn’t this on nearly every American’s mind less than thirty months ago?
No, Uff-Po, this isn’t about “shaking the Etch-a-Sketch” — this is replacing the wolf’s blood that was in it with something just as gooey, but more environmentally acceptable, hoping nobody will notice …
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You’re absolutely right, Clarissa; the economy must be improving. In 2008, my grandfather had ~220 customers. Now he has ~93.
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Well I have recently seen one history job not in my field advertised in the US and that is more than zero. But, it is not enough of an improvement for me to consider wasting time looking and applying for jobs in the US yet.
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One of the things that a lot of people don’t get is that parties in power sometimes want a break.
I remember figures in the British media quite openly talking about how John Major was deserted by his own party because the party powers that be thought they needed some time out of power.
Similarly I’m convinced that the Republicans wanted to lose in 2008 (which is why they went with the deeply unappealing McCain). I think they left 2012 to chance, they won fine if they didn’t it wasn’t the end of the world.
Romney couldn’t seal the deal with his own party (hostage to the worst elements of the evnagelicals who will stay home rather than vote for someone with a suspect past) and so he lost.
It’s not even 2016 yet so the election is far from over but there is a real possibility that the democrats might want to hand off the presidency for a term or two. This is one way of doing it, downplaying anything good and letting the other side get ahead of the media debate.
Hillary is not very inspiring this time around and who else is there? Biden? that would be a clusterfuck of a presidency. I like Elisabeth Warren a lot from what I’ve seen but there’s no indication she wants the office (or would be good at it).
I suspect the final candidates are going to be people that aren’t even on the radar at present.
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McCain was the most appealing one of them for decades, in my opinion. I could have even supported him had he not chosen to saddle himself with Palin. He is the only Republican candidate for decades without severe intellectual limitations. Romney had no idea where Ukraine even was located several years ago. The Bushes still don’t know where their left hand is located. Reagan was brain-damaged from the start. I’m guessing there was some organic damage he was suffering from. Nixon’s crooked smile also points to something like an early stroke.
So let’s not dump on McCain whose strong and consistent position on Ukraine makes me like him.
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