Mouthing nonsense
WASHINGTON — The velocity and compression of the news cycle—along with the manic, serial certainty of those who inhabit it—have become discrediting. It took just hours for a general assessment that Mitt Romney’s Boca Raton video was fatal to his candidacy to become a broad suspicion that the initial assessment was overblown. When every event in a campaign is presented as cosmic, the overall impression is comic.
In fact, the video confirmed an existing stereotype of Romney and Republicans as wealthy white businessmen, clinking wine glasses while bemoaning the irresponsibility of the help. This probably does not change the fundamental dynamic of the race because few imagined Romney to be a closet populist.
The problem for Romney is that the fundamental dynamic is not favorable. A nation disillusioned with the incumbent has unresolved questions about the suitability of the challenger. The video holds those questions open at a time when Romney should be answering them.
It is possible that America—fed up with economic stagnation and worried about international disorder—will turn, in the end, to a solid, competent Republican stereotype. But that raises another issue concerning the video—a matter of governing, not politics. Is this Romney’s view of the nature of our social crisis?
Romney was appealing to a common Republican belief that the expansion of government has produced a class of citizens who live off the sweat of others, regard themselves as victims and refuse to accept responsibility.
While the Romney video was making news, I was reading recent research by Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam. He recounts an interview with a woman given the fictional name of Mary Sue who lives in a declining industrial town in Ohio. Mary Sue’s parents divorced when she was young. Her mother became a stripper and left for days at a time. Her stepmother beat her and confined her to a single room. Mary Sue told the interviewer that, for a time, her only friend had been a yellow mouse who shared the apartment.
Mary Sue went in and out of juvenile detention. One boyfriend burned her arms with cigarettes. Her current partner has two children by two other women.
Is such a story really explainable as a failure of personal responsibility? That seems both simplistic and callous.
Putnam describes these social conditions as “depressingly typical” in America’s working class. He measures a number of growing gaps between poorer and more affluent Americans—gaps of parental time and investment, of religious and community involvement, of academic achievement—that widen a class divide and predict a “social mobility crash” for millions of Americans.
This crisis has a number of causes, including the collapse of working-class families, the flight of blue-collar jobs and the decay of working-class neighborhoods, which used to offer stronger networks of mentors outside the home. Perverse incentives in some government programs may have contributed to these changes, but this does not mean that shifting incentives can easily undo the damage. Removing a knife from a patient does not automatically return him to health.
Whatever the economic and cultural causes, the current problem is dysfunctional institutions, which routinely betray children and young adults. Restoring a semblance of equal opportunity—promoting family commitment, educational attainment and economic advancement—will take tremendous effort and creative policy.
Yet a Republican ideology pitting the “makers” against the “takers” offers nothing. No sympathy for our fellow citizens. No insight into our social challenge. No hope of change. This approach involves a relentless reductionism. Human worth is reduced to economic production. Social problems are reduced to personal vices. Politics is reduced to class warfare on behalf of the upper class.
A few libertarians have wanted this fight ever since they read “Atlas Shrugged” as pimply adolescents. Given Romney’s background, record and faith, I don’t believe he holds this view. I do believe that Republicans often parrot it, because they lack familiarity with other forms of conservatism that include a conception of the common good.
But there really is no excuse. Republican politicians could turn to Burkean conservatism, with its emphasis on the “little platoons” of civil society. They could reflect on the Catholic tradition of subsidiarity, and solidarity with the poor. They could draw inspiration from Tory evangelical social reformers such as William Wilberforce or Lord Shaftesbury. Or they could just read Abraham Lincoln, who stood for “an unfettered start, and a fair chance, in the race of life.”
Instead they mouth libertarian nonsense, unable to even describe some of the largest challenges of our time.
Michael Gerson is a columnist for the Washington Post Writers Group; email michaelgerson@washpost.com.
Sep 24, 2012 at 4:10 p.m.
Suggest removal
This speaks for itself.....
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeJbOU4nmHQ&...
Sep 24, 2012 at 10:01 a.m.
Suggest removal
Ha, ha...motorman
I don't need to cover my ears........I am hearing impaired.
Sep 24, 2012 at 5:52 a.m.
Suggest removal
How ironic, your comment fits perfectly with the title of this article.
Sep 23, 2012 at 11:37 p.m.
Suggest removal
Yep all them 1% people of the rep party, wait, what was that? Obama did what? No he didn't. Oh my, Those attending an Obama party paid $40,000 to attend and watch the president give a speech in front of a wall of over $100,000.00 of Armand de Brignac Brut Gold bottles. Interesting no video's have come forth from his speech...
http://nakeddc.com/2012/09/19/barack-oba...
Sep 23, 2012 at 10:24 p.m.
Suggest removal
"Bill Kristol of the conservative Weekly Standard gave similar advice on the “Fox News Sunday” roundtable, saying that the fact that Obama was handed a bad economic situation makes a referendum message problematic for Romney. Kristol said that Obama has turned the economy around “pretty well” considering the crisis the inherited.
“If this election’s just about the last four years, that’s a muddy verdict,” he said. “Bush was president during the financial meltdown. The Obama team has turned that around pretty well… He’s got to make it a referendum on the choice about the next four years and explain what Obama would do over the next four years that would be bad for the country and what he would do that would be different for the country.”" [ http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/0... ]
Sep 23, 2012 at 9:19 p.m.
Suggest removal
Not so long ago the polls had Carter ahead of Reagan by 17%... And if memory serves me correct Reagan won in a landslide..! And wasn't there a newspaper headline a quite a few years back screaming DEWEY WINS..! Moral of story...Don't believe everything you hear/see/read..!
Sep 23, 2012 at 2:23 p.m.
Suggest removal
PollTracker has Obama with 332 electoral votes to Romney's 206 without leaners, with 270 needed to win. Obama has maintained this margin for two months now -- very much in line with the Gazette's front page article that stated the race is seemingly "frozen in place." [ http://core.talkingpointsmemo.com/electi... ]
Sep 23, 2012 at 2:12 p.m.
Suggest removal
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows President Obama and Mitt Romney each attracting support from 46% of voters nationwide.
I guess not everyone believes Obama.
Sep 23, 2012 at 12:09 p.m.
Suggest removal
wislady,
This article is not about the media. The media is mentioned only in passing in the first paragraph. It it clear that this Conservative writer's goal was to explain that the current incarnation of Conservatism that leads the Republican party is not conducive to across the aisle cooperation or for helping lift those 47% that Romney so disdainfully referred to out of their current station and onto a path of self sustainability. For all of his faults, at least President GW Bush was devoted to what he called "compassionate Conservatism" rather than this every man for himself garbage being preached these days. I wonder if Mitt Romney would tell a disabled vet to his/her face that they should be able to make it on their own or rot in the streets. Romney's idealogy seems to be only tailored for fundraising from rich heartless ultra conservative donors not for setting actual policy. That is why so many voters don't believe in him.
Sep 23, 2012 at 10:46 a.m.
Suggest removal
wis, the headline describes 99.9% of your posts.
Sep 23, 2012 at 7:20 a.m.
Suggest removal
dbt
"wis, what you (and Mittens) fail to realize"
Now, you are a mind reader?
Your assumption that I am not aware of military voting preference is rather presumptuous. What other reason is there for disenfranchise the military vote, or for not enforcing the very law potus signed?
http://hamptonroads.com/2012/09/bitter-f...
Why don't YOU start at the beginning of this article..........the headline.
Sep 22, 2012 at 11:48 a.m.
Suggest removal
wis, what you (and Mittens) fail to realize is that a lot of the 47% are Romney voters. Military personnel tend to vote Republican, as do the elderly on SS and there is also a segment of the very wealthy that pay no income taxes. I doubt they'll be voting for Obama.
Sep 22, 2012 at 11:07 a.m.
Suggest removal
Mitt "Etch-a-sketch" Romney will say anything to try to get elected. Mitt cannot be trusted, as was evident with his "47 percent" comments, where he DIVIDES the country, and shows he really wants to lead just his followers.
I have never seen such as LYING and RACIST political campaign by a Republican presidential candidate in my life. And, they use VOTER SUPRESSION tactics to top it off.
ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING!
Sep 22, 2012 at 7:12 a.m.
Suggest removal
Romney was not attacking this segment of the population, he was stating a fact.
Here it is again for those of you who have tried to warp the comment to fit your arguments:
The Quote "There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it -- that that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. ... These are people who pay no income tax. ... [M]y job is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."
Motorman
The 47 percent of Americans who he says "pay no income tax." .......
If it makes you feel good to categorize me, go ahead. Like you, I also paid for my own education, and I still pay taxes.
The point of this article seems to have been lost on some of you. It is about media using distraction. Romney was stating "fact". How about some media reporting on the LIES that Obama has told just over this past week?
Sep 22, 2012 at 12:08 a.m.
Suggest removal
Gerson states, "A few libertarians have wanted this fight ever since they read Atlas Shrugged as pimply adolescents." Is he referring to Paul Ryan? You tell me.
Sep 21, 2012 at 11:01 p.m.
Suggest removal
Au contraire, wislady. "Yet a Republican ideology pitting the makers against the takers offers nothing". Read what Gerson has to say in the last three paragraphs and tell me if you think he agrees with Romney's attack on the so called 47%.
Sep 21, 2012 at 10:38 p.m.
Suggest removal
This piece by Gerson seems a bit odd, but it is trying to point out the absurdity of the press.
"The velocity and compression of the news cycle—along with the manic, serial certainty of those who inhabit it—have become discrediting."
Time to move beyond all the distractions the media is putting around Obama to shield him, and start letting the American people know the truth.
Sep 21, 2012 at 5:17 p.m.
Suggest removal
"The author, Michael Gerson, has impeccable right-wing bona fides: He worked at the Heritage Foundation, served Chuck Colson and Bob Dole, and was President George W. Bush's chief speechwriter."
Sep 21, 2012 at 1:11 p.m.
Suggest removal
This must be an old bi-line because FOX news has already shown the entire clip and busted MSNBC for selective editing.
Before you post a comment, consider this:
Note: GazetteXtra.com does not condone or review every comment. Read more in our User Policy AgreementPost Comment
Commenting requires registration.