Romney is doing what has never been done--here

I'm not trying to be strident or outrageous, but it has come to this. In at least the spirit of mid-20th-century totalitarian propaganda techniques, the Romney campaign is all in.

We suspected as much when they unabashedly and later unapologetically lifted an Obama video from the 2008 campaign, in which the Democratic candidate repeated (attribution, clipped) the Republican candidate's self-troubled admission. The really stunning dimension of that Romney ad wasn't its naked misrepresentation--this is, after all, politics--but the Romney campaign's absolute refusal to concede its absolute untruth.

When pressed on the ad's scurrility, Romney's campaign spokesmen and Romney himself would just grin their wicked, knowing little grins--the black-hearted grin of the grifter, of the political thug, of the frustrated, unaccomplished novelist. George W. Bush reinvented Reality; now Mitt Romney will reinvent Truth--it is whatever Mitt Romney says it is, although it's even more repugnantly opportunistic than that; it is, plainly, whatever 50.1 percent of the electorate is willing to believe. 

To truly be a first-rate propagandist of world-class scurrility, however, one must repeat one's naked transgressions against both reality and truth. You know, just to show the bleeding-heart bastards and media watchdogs and goo-goo types that one not only intends to play rough, but without any sign of correction or contrition or rehabilitation. Ever.

In short, bullying thugs double-down, which is precisely what the Romney campaign has done in this sickening ad, which purports a shocking presidential reversal on the merits of government employment. Here I'll just leave the ad's description at that;  the ad itself is too preposterous to bother with elaboration.

Doubtless the ad is aimed strictly at lowest-information voters. No one who has read a newspaper or watched any news in the last few months could absorb it without experiencing utter incredulity. And the more knowledgeable among us might be tempted to say--as I said above--well, this is, after all, politics. Everybody does it.

Yet there is something qualitatively different here. No one has ever "done it" like the Romney campaign; even throughout the heretofore most vicious presidential campaigns of, say, 1800 or 1828 or 1860, there were at least some elements of truthful reality in the wildest charges of monarchism or militarism and adulterous bigamy or violently unwanted government encroachment.

But this is new. What the Romney campaign's doing is staggeringly, venomously fresh. No one has ever done it before--not in America, anyway.

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Comments

[AnneJ]

And sadly that is why I think he can win. Again... It's the electorate, people!

[japa21]

"it is, plainly, whatever 50.1 percent of the electorate is willing to believe."

Actually, it is whatever various components that add up to 50.1% are willing to believe. He doesn't care if, say, 10% don't believe everything he says, as long as they believes X when he says it. And if 25% don't believe everything, that is okay as long as they believe Y. And if 15.1% don't believe everything, that is also okay, as long as they believe Z.

In each case, X, Y or Z is enough for that particular group to vote for him. Or at least, that is what he believes.

I still think he is going to be off by at least 3-5%.

[Robert Lipscomb]

It sounds more like Rove than Romney. That is not to say that Romney is not an enthusiastically willing accomplice. This leads me to what has been botherng me about Jeb Bush's recent public actions.

Bush (and some others) have been throwing the Bull Shit Flash on Romney's campaign. This seems to butress PM's assertion that the GOP is in the midst of a binge of self-destruction. Why? That is not very GOP-ish.

Rove doesn't care. He is skimming 10 - 20% off the hundreds of millions of dollars of ads he is and will be running for the super-PACs. George H.W. Bush long ago let Rove know he is not part part of the family. Rove has left W holding the bag.

It looks more and more like a brewing civil war in the GOP.

PM is correct to say this is something new. The old guard GOP can no longer tolerate it - if for no other reason than it will not succeed in the long term.

[jimbo]

Ultimately rove does the kochs' bidding. In a bell curve of possible threads of cause of America's crisis, far to one end is that we are in a takeover by the kochs, with alec a conspiratorial partner. Dare one say a fascistic takeover?

[rehab]

"it is, plainly, whatever 50.1 percent of the electorate is willing to believe."