Romney Dooms His Candidacy by Doing the Full Murray (Murray Doctrine: Anyone who is not white and rich are immoral failures)
William K. BlackAssoc. Professor, Univ. of Missouri, Kansas City; Sr. regulator during S&L debacle
Romney Dooms His Candidacy by Doing the Full Murray
Posted: 09/18/2012 8:49 am
Charles Murray’s newest book, Coming Apart: The State of White America, proves two classic truths. First, it is impossible to compete with self-parody. Second, be careful what you ask for; for you may receive it. Charles Murray asked right-wing plutocrats (he dismissed left-wing plutocrats as disloyal to their class and to capitalism) to drop what he derided as “political correctness” and denounce Americans who received governmental support as immoral failures. Murray is a vigorous supporter and flatterer of Mitt Romney, claiming that the fact that he became wealthy at Bain should make him a “slam dunk” for the presidency. Murray’s reasoning is so crude that he announces a new doctrine — the divine right of CEOs to govern America. “Who better to be president of the greatest of all capitalist nations than a man who got rich by being a brilliant capitalist?”
No need to hold elections; simply make whoever tops the Forbes list of wealthiest people the president. Think of the competitive incentives that rule would create.
Romney and Paul Ryan answered both aspects of Murray’s call of right wing plutocrats to arms. They embraced social Darwinism and the view that anyone who received governmental assistance was morally inferior and needed to be denounced. They agreed with the need to remove the safety net to destroy a “culture of dependency” so that the working class and the poor would be forced to assume personal responsibility and stop being freeloaders.
In adopting the full Murray, Romney has doomed his electoral chances. His response to a question by a wealth donor as to how he would convince poorer Americans that they needed to adopt “personal responsibility” will become a classic.
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.
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[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.Romney defines his prospective job as president as “not to worry” about the desires of 47 percent of his fellow Americans. These people are hopeless moochers whose votes have been bought by Democrats and their social programs.
The nearest analog I can think of was Barry Goldwater’s statement that America would be better off if we cut the “eastern seacoast” off and let it float away into the Atlantic Ocean. This led to President Johnson’s classic ad of a saw cutting off the eastern seacoast while an announcer read Goldwater’s statement. The ad then asked the public the question that applies with even greater force to Romney’s admission that he does not worry about the desires of nearly half of all Americans. “Can a man who makes statements like this be expected to serve all the people, justly and fairly?” Romney has made clear he has no intention of serving the 47 percent. Indeed, his position (the full Murray) is that serving their governmental service to the 47 percent is the problem.
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