Mitt Wasn’t All Wrong About “Gifts”
"What the president's campaign did was focus on certain members of his base coalition, give them extraordinary financial gifts from the government and then work very aggressively to turn them out to vote, and that strategy worked."
Thus did political analyst Mitt Romney identify the cause of his defeat in a call to disconsolate contributors.
Republicans piled on. "Completely unhelpful," Gov. Bobby Jindal told Wolf Blitzer. We don't advance the "debate by insulting folks."
"A terrible thing to say," Chris Christie told Joe Scarborough. "You can't expect to be the leader of all the people and be divisive."
Oh. Was not Abe Lincoln at least mildly "divisive"? Did not FDR insult Wall Street folks by calling them "money changers in the temple of our civilization"? Was Ronald Reagan a uniter not a divider when he said, "Let the bloodbath begin!" and mocked "welfare queens"?
And Harry Truman, did he not insult and divide—and win?
"I just think it's nuts," Newt Gingrich told ABC's Martha Raddatz of Romney's remark, kicking him again in an Austin TV interview:
"Gov. Romney's analysis ... is insulting and profoundly wrong. ... We didn't lose Asian-Americans because they got any gifts. He did worse with Asian-Americans than he did with Latinos. This is the hardest-working and most successful ethnic group in America, OK, they ain't into gifts."
Now, Newt does have a point.
What explains the GOP wipeout among Asian-Americans? Folks of Korean, Chinese and Japanese descent have a legendary work ethic, are academic overachievers, and are possessed of an entrepreneurial spirit. They should be natural Republicans.
But Mitt also has a point.
Consider America's largest, fastest-growing minority.
Hispanics constituted 10 percent of the electorate, up from 7.5 in 2008. But Mitt got only 27 percent of that, the lowest of any Republican presidential candidate.
This, we are told, was because of Mitt's comment about "self-deportation" and GOP support for a border fence and sanctions on employers who hire illegals. If only we embrace the Dream Act and provide a path to citizenship—amnesty—the GOP's problem is solved.
The Republican capacity for self-delusion is truly awesome.
Set aside the idealized Hispanic of the Republican consultants' vision. What does the real Hispanic community look like today?
Let us consider only native-born Hispanics, U.S. citizens.
According to Steve Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies, which analyzed Census Bureau statistics from 2012:
—More than one in five Hispanic citizens lives in poverty.
—One in four Hispanic-American men 25 to 55 is out of work.
—More than half of all Hispanic women 25-55 are unmarried.
—Half of all Hispanic households with children are headed by an unmarried woman, and 55 percent depend on welfare programs.
These numbers do not improve with time, as they did with the Irish, Italian, Polish, Jewish and German immigrants who poured into the United States between 1890 and 1920. Third-generation Hispanics do worse than second-generation Hispanics in all the above categories.
This is a huge community being sucked into the morass of a mammoth welfare state. Consider a typical Hispanic household with children.
It is headed by an unmarried women who receives food stamps and public housing or rent supplements to feed and house her children.
Her kids are educated free from Head Start to K-12 and fed by school breakfast and lunch programs. Should they graduate high school, Pell Grants and student loans are there for college.
For cash, mom gets welfare checks. If she takes a job, she will receive an earned income tax credit to supplement her income. If she loses her job, she can get 99 weeks of unemployment checks.
For health care, there is Medicaid and Obamacare. And like 45 percent of all Hispanic households, she has no federal income tax liability.
Why should this woman vote for a party that will cut taxes she does not pay, but reduce benefits she does receive?
Rename Romney's gifts "government services," writes Aaron Blake citing a Washington Post poll, and one discovers that 67 percent of Latinos favor "a larger government with more services."
These are big government people. And why should they not be?
According to Heather Mac Donald, writing in National Review, a 2011 survey found that California Hispanics by four to one objected more to the GOP on class-warfare grounds—the party "favors only the rich," Republicans are "selfish"—than to the GOP stand on immigration.
Writes Mac Donald: California's Hispanics will likely prove more decisive in passing Proposition 30, to raise state income taxes to 13.3 percent, the highest level in the nation, than to Obama's victory.
Nor is this unusual. Populist programs to stick it to the rich have always had an appeal south of the border.
There are 50 million Hispanics in America today. California is lost to the GOP. Nevada and Colorado are slipping away. Arizona and Texas are next up on the block.
With the U.S. Hispanic population in 2050 projected to reach 130 million, the acolytes of Karl Rove have their work cut out for them.
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The trends all point to the Democratic Party becoming the Mexican PRI equivalent north of the border - anti-religious, secular, oligarchic and corrupt. The Democratic Party is a reflection of its voting constituents which are the growing majority in the country. Immigrants from authoritarian cultures, like Mexico, Russia or just about anywhere in Asia, prefer the same in their new country whether it is either the Democratic or GOP variety. The United States was created from the bottom up and not the top down. Democracy was practiced in small New England towns long before there was a thought of a central government. The current political situation is ironic to say the least as immigrants and native socialists have changed the majority view of government. Although the word 'culture' is thrown about in different contexts, the majority culture (which means the religious culture of the people) is quickly becoming atheistic, materialistic, hedonistic and self focused. The late Catholic historian Christopher Dawson in his study of world cultures led him to claim that: "It is the religious impulse which supplies the cohesive force which unifies a society and a culture... A society which has lost its religion becomes sooner or later a society which has lost its culture." We are seeing a hundred years later the results of the decadent slide of American along with the infusion of tens of millions of 'alien' voters where the old culture and political consensus has just about disappeared......causing conservatives and traditionalists to feel like strangers in our own land in more ways than one.
The Democrats made no secret of their strategy and here is an article from The Root, owned by the Washington Post, written by one of the groups pandered-to, black Americans: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/therootdc/post/president-obama-an-open-letter-from-black-america/2012/11/08/800ac31e-29b3-11e2-b4e0-346287b7e56c_blog.html.
In the article the writer essentially asks "where's mine"? He points out exactly the bribes and the targeted groups at which they were aimed that Romney points to and asks how blacks are going to be repaid. The answers he claims to have gotten from the panderers are interesting. I wonder how long it will take blacks to figure out that they are no longer anyone's favored minority group - they'll have to move over for Hispanics who have much greater potential for providing the welfare state the voters it needs to prevail.
In defense of Gov. Romney--something I've never dreamt of doing--he sees gifts where the mass of Americans sees services. An arch individualist out for the main chance, he doesn't believe in the commonwealth because he doesn't believe wealth, in any form whatever, can or should be held in common. But then, why did he run for president of a country conceived in the commonwealth tradition?
Of Asian Americans' tendency to vote preponderantly for Democrats, I'd say that they, too, see services where Romney sees gifts. They might also note Republican bellicosity, Republican duplicity, and Republican prodigality and conclude from the record of the last 40 years that the Democrats are less bellicose and duplicitous and no more prodigal and that Democrats are less likely to thunder against Asian Americans' ancestral homelands.
One thing that we should remember is that the GOP ran Pat out of the party for talking about immigration restrictions in 1992 and 1996. The GOP also lost Ohio in this last election because they ran Pat Buchanan out of the party for his economic patriotism towards our manufacturing base and automobile workers. Also the GOP has always hated our republic and always aspired to Empire --- always have and always will so long as they have any color left in their chameleon skin. The GOP is a very wicked party. The same folks who ran Pat out of the GOP are now all over national television telling " us conservatives" how to win in the next round. Clyde Wilson has reminded readers several times over the years that no progress can be made, no leaning forward, no restoration of the old christian superstitions etc., no return from Empire, no release of the strangle hold on America's money sack without the demise of the GOP. Romney's loss was a good thing in so far as it contributed to the demise of the GOP.
Also, I almost forgot to mention the most obvious, that the GOP is part of America's duopoly warmonger party. Was it not a little embarrassing to see both of America's presidential candidates groveling before their own populace with promises of more American blood for more wars around the globe if only they could be elected or re-elected ?
Jeff Madrick, in the December issue of Harper's Magazine, argues that government social programs have been the only "protection" that Americans "on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder" have had because the "American Dream" (hard work ==> rising income ==> decent, good, even secure life) has been dead for over 30 years. His proposed solution is "a renewed commitment to social programs and job-creating rules and regulations." He worries that we "have too little faith in government to do what will be necessary" and "this failure of imagination and national will is nothing short of tragic." Doubting that we can achieve rapid economic growth to provide an abundance of high-salary jobs, Madrick says we need a higher minimum wage, expanded medical coverage for part-time workers, mandatory company-provided retirement programs, and government provided jobs in areas like teaching and construction.
Mr. Van Sant,
"I should prefer to have a politician who regularly went to a massage parlour than one who promised a laptop computer for every teacher." A.N. Wilson
Are you not put off by all the finger pointing at Petraus by the toe dancers, military levelers, unnatural vice crowd, serial marriage advocates, professional anti-christians and our nations politicians? Would someone please tell the poor fools that disrespect for God, His Name, His day, disrespect for our parents, and murdering our children culturaly precede offenses against the neighbors such as lying, cheating and stealing, etc,
What Buchanan writes here was to duplicate what my associates and I at the American Council for Immigration Reform have been telling GOP officials at the state and federal levels for two decades - obviously, with no apparent success. Unrestricted immigration, as well as current levels of legal immigration, will guarantee that the GOP will go the way of the Whigs. The continued importation of Third World immigrants from Latin America, uneducated and dependent on govenrmental largesse, assures that outcome.
The Asian tsunami vote for Obama is a surprise at the national level, but is not a stark departure from their voting habits in local elections. Note, too, that there is no distinction made between Southern and East Asians, the former very much tied to a governmental welfare system.
Add to this voting cocktail the percentage of votes for the Democratic Party of blacks, and despite what the solons of talk radio say, the end of the GOP is nigh.
I am very fond of the aphorism that in this situation is quite appropriate: in a democracy, the people get the officials they deserve, and, therefore, deserve what they get.
Menchen said it best "as democracy is perfected,the office of President represents,more and more closely,the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folk of the land will reach their hearts desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a down right moron"
Well, what can be expected, the Republicans got off to a bad start with Lincoln. Just trace it back to the source and there you go.
I am very fond of the aphorism that in this situation is quite appropriate: in a democracy, the people get the officials they deserve, and, therefore, deserve what they get.
There are several problems with this aphorism as it is stated here. The first and most fundamental is that it is gleeful and smug, not at all Christian or conservative.
The second is that it is might well serve as an excuse for not acting, when otherwise right-thinking people are faced with destructive menaces to the survival of what is rightly OUR country, OUR people.
The third is that to interpret the citation as it is usually interpreted in these circumstances is entirely a misappropriation of the original form. When Maistre said that toute nation a le gouvernement qu'elle mérite, he was referring to the situation in early 19th-century Russia and Georgia and to a lesser extent France. These were NOT, even Jacobin France, "democracies" in the sense of the plebiscite, let alone the universal adult male plebiscite.
Maistre was speaking of the Russian Emperor's attempts at reforming his country and applauding the latter's efforts whilst harboring reserves about the potential salutary effects of laws and laws alone. Mériter in this context should be understood as "the government that befits it" as much as "the government it deserves" and it certainly does not mean "the government it has earned." (Would one argue that the Russians "deserved" the Bolsheviks? That the Serbs and Hungarians "deserved" the Turks?)
The aphorism as cited above does not quite fit into Tocqueville's repertoire of "clear but false ideas," but it comes close. What CAN be said along those lines is that if there is no longer a significant portion (not even necessarily a majority) of the American people that values its Anglo-European and Christian heritage enough to defend it, we are indeed doomed, and no elected leader can stem the tide, and Barack Obama is therefore a fitting incarnation of what we are to become.
“What explains the GOP wipeout among Asian-Americans?”
Could it be that Romney sounded more hostile to Asia, and that Asian-Americans still identify with the old countries and took offense at such rhetoric?
Mr. Reavis, In listening to Fox, CNN, and MSNBC, I didn't hear a lot of criticism for Petraus. Most of what I heard was defense of the Administration and Susan Rice over the Benghazi attack. My personal experience and observations are that the military life is not conducive to a good, enduring family life. I haven’t seen any studies on the effect of military service on military marriages, but a lot men in my Naval Academy class of 1969 are not married to their first wives.
Re: Petraeus, I cannot defend adultery as a matter of conviction. However, cheating on one's wife is a fairly common vice among military officers and members of the government and a probably ineradicable time-honored custom. (Besides, who was the better statesman: Louis XIV or Barack Hussein Obama?) Obviously, if it gets out of control it can be distracting to one's civic and intellectual duties, and then someone needs to blow a whistle. Idem if, in the words of Andrew Lloyd Weber, "a bit on the side starts to move to the center where she's not qualified." (The Marquise de Pompadour is an excellent example.)
THAT SAID... the stakes are a bit different in diplomacy, intelligence, special forces or anything else involving subterfuge or espionage. It can be reasonably assumed that if the men employed therein cannot discipline themselves and maintain incredible personal integrity, they will at some point constitute a security weakness or even threat. They are not members of the government but government officials, and it is not necessary to accord them the privilege of public laxity with regard to their personal lives. Nor would it be prudent to do so.
This is why I have no sympathy for Petraeus with regard to his career. He was not a politician but a government official. He may or may not have been a good soldier (I do not know), but his personal behavior shows that he was unfit to work for the leviathan of an organism he was in. (Note that I have composed these lines working under the assumption that we would necessarily have some sort of intelligence-gathering or special ops entity. The actual utility of the CIA, etc. is a topic for another day.)
Nevertheless, the deed is done. Petraeus is out and it's time to move on. Next mission: Obama out...
I thank Mr. Moses for his Christian response to my most un-Christian assessment of our current situation. If I may, however..
a. if by "smug" you mean "conceited," or "vain," then I plead not guilty, for my use of that aphorism was to describe our current situation; not to revel in it.
b. regarding "non-action," I have for more years than I wish to reveal sought to use our group's influence in at least recognizing that this country is in serious peril at all levels, the unraveling of the family being foremost amongst them. I would doubt that many readers of this webzine have made more trips to their state legislature or to the halls of the US Congress to take action on matters of some importance: the growing tide of illegal aliens who now threaten our nation being another. Let us say that my efforts have fallen on barren soil.
Finally, I assure Signor Moses that my position is based entirely on the quaint notion that what was at one time a Christian nation has begun its decline into paganism, and that the religious values that were at the heart of this Republic since its founding are no longer to be found.
Irrespective of its geographical appropriateness, the fact is that we are in a state of serious decline, and I could think of far less Christian words to describe it.
@vatvince: Good sir, I hope that you did not take my response personally, as it was directed at the aphorism and not at you. If I find fault with the aphorism as cited, I do not blame you, oh no: you are far from the first person to cite this mistranslation/misinterpretation of Maistre's observation; indeed, the misquote has become almost colloquial. And I could have gathered from your first quote that you yourself have done physically more to stem the demographic tide than I ever have (and sloth is the capital vice against which I struggle the most, if you don't mind my revealing something of my personal spirituality), and so did not intend to imply that you had internalized what I believe to be the incorrect message of said quote.
However, I took the opportunity to point out the sense of the original message for just that reason: I do not agree, even in our case, that people necessarily get the governments they "deserve" (did not Our Lord promise to spare Sodom for but ten good men?) and to reduce Maistre's observation to this is to miss the deeper underlying wisdom about what our governments, constitutions and politics may say about ourselves.
"These are big government people. And why should they not be?"
Pat, as usual, makes some fine points with his command of demographics. However, while it is interesting to dissect the political landscape in such a manner, it is not the Latinos who cost Romney the election. Well, not just the Latinos. The primary cause of Romney's demise, in a big picture sort of way, is that he was touting cuts to domestic spending. They weren't really cuts, his proposals were actually for slower growth, but it came across as cuts, future downward adjustments to social security, etc. And, since nearly every American benefits directly or indirectly from domestic spending for some or all of his livelihood, Romney had to lose. The only surprise about the election is that Romney received so many votes. People don't ordinarily vote themselves a pay / benefit cut. Romney's promise to increase military spending thrilled the generals and the folks who work that sector of the economy, but it wasn't enough. Quite simply, politicians get elected by bribing the voters. Obama just bribed more of them.
Now, I know it's very popular in some circles to lambaste the dark skinned peoples for being layabouts, loafers and parasites. Which, of course, many of them are. However, the biggest beneficiaries of federal spending are the bankers. Followed in no particular order by every single major institution, industry and pop stand in the country. Heck, even the billionaire sport team owners often get 100% taxpayer funded stadiums. No need to mention the fact that all of those otherwise productive workers in military industries and their myriad sub-contractors and vendors are 100% government dependents. The entire so-called higher education system, private and public is hugely subsidized. The list is nearly endless. Agriculture, energy, manufacturing of every kind, church charities and on it goes. So, while it is popular and simple minded to blame poor people for consuming food stamps and voting for Obama, the really substantial parasites are all around, posing as productive workers and tax payers, some of them even sailing under false colors as 'conservatives', tea loving 'patriots' or mommy 'grizzlies'. Slap some soot on their faces and call em ghetto queens.
So yes, 'these' people are all big government people, every one of them.
W.C. Taqiyya, I couldn't agree with you more. Maybe I could, so I'll just add there is no 'capitalism' without government, there is no necessary loss of custom and locale without the one (new) world empire Constitution. Gosh this was all set to go in the direction it has long before we were born and now navigate to survive it. On the other hand knowing too how the world is imperfect, I suppose it could have been worse. ? So happy belated Thanksgiving, on the other hand.