The Convention, Condensed

It boils down to this.

Oh. And, this, which happened while Artur Davis, their token black guy, was speaking:

Threat Levels

Da Judge is worried about President Obama, no doubt on a black horse, riding into Texas with the full force of the UN army behind him. Of course it ain't gonna happen. Neither is this:

LUDOWICI — Prosecutors say a murder case against four soldiers in Georgia has revealed they formed an anarchist militia within the U.S. military with plans to overthrow the federal government... The prosecutor said the militia group had big plans... Ultimately, prosecutors said, the militia’s goal was to overthrow the government and assassinate the president.

But, really, which scenario has more potential to do actual damage, in whatever amount? Which is already extant: right-wing neo-Nazi haters of Barack Obama trying to hurt someone, or UN peacekeepers rising up under the banner of Kenyan anti-colonialism and marching across our borders?

Thanks to the constant barrage from the RWS™ proclaiming Obama's "otherness," his illegitimacy, his hatred for our country, these nutjobs are given a reason for existing; a claim to relevance, a channel for their life-long sense of grievance. They are out there. Their numbers may be small, but if they succeeded in their assassination plans, there'd be millions more, silently cheering. You know, the ones already dismantling democracy by voter suppression and destruction of education. Anarchy on the inside.

At All Costs

Just as the majority religion in America -- the one with a virtual monopoly -- likes to portray itself as under siege even as it's succeeding in worming its way into our schools and political platforms to an unprecedented degree, so is Mitt Romney's Republican party seeking to win by appealing to white people who've seen the black guy in their house as a threat to their legitimacy, their sense of entitlement. There are none so manipulatable as those made to feel threatened by forces beyond their control.

... The Washington Post’s fact checker, Glenn Kessler, gave the welfare ads his lowest rating, four Pinocchios. The Tampa Bay Tribune’s Politifact was equally harsh, describing the ads as “a drastic distortion” warranting a “pants on fire” rating. The welfare commercial, according to Politifact, “inflames old resentments about able-bodied adults sitting around collecting public assistance.”

Sharp criticism has done nothing to hold back the Romney campaign from continuing its offensive — in speeches and on the air — because the accuracy of the ads is irrelevant as far as the Republican presidential ticket is concerned. The goal is not to make a legitimate critique, but to portray Obama as willing to give the “undeserving” poor government handouts at the expense of hardworking taxpayers.

Insofar as Romney can revive anti-welfare sentiments – which have been relatively quiescent since the enactment of the 1996 reforms – he may be able to increase voter motivation among whites whose enthusiasm for Romney has been dimmed by the barrage of Obama ads criticizing Bain Capital for firing workers and outsourcing jobs during Romney’s tenure as C.E.O. of the company.

[...]

The Romney campaign is willing to disregard criticism concerning accuracy and veracity in favor of “blowing the dog whistle of racism” – resorting to a campaign appealing to racial symbols, images and issues in its bid to break the frustratingly persistent Obama lead in the polls, which has lasted for the past 10 months. The result is a campaign run at two levels. On the trail, Paul Ryan argues that “we’re going to make this about ideas. We’re going to make this about a positive vision for the future.” On television and the Internet, however, the Romney campaign is clearly determined “to make this about” race...

The longer campaigns go on, the nastier they get. Once unthinkable methods become conventional...

The thing is, the approach is working. Playing on white Christian fear and aggrievement, caring nothing about factuality, the Romney campaign has finally gotten back to the base(st) line. It's always worked, and Republicans have the most experience and expertise in the technique.* Plus they have the distinct advantage, having played to perfection the long game of misinforming and diseducating, of having potential voters who are more primed than ever to accept it. Nor should we forget they have unprecedented cost-free use of a well-honed and shameless propaganda complex.

A recent commenter seemed shocked that I think Obama will lose. As I do, she lives in the Pacific Northwest, where, although hardly an all-liberal bastion, there's a general sense of sense, even among Republicans; so it's easy to be lulled into not recognizing what American voters have become. And as we've seen, the story of Mitt Romney's life has been learning how, and willingness, to win at all costs.

(Here's an interesting article suggesting it'll be the last time the R party tries to win by appealing only to white people. If he loses, maybe so. But I'm not at all confident he will. And if they manage to put in place their programs, so devastating to our ability to compete in the world, it won't really matter what happens next: it'll be too late to recover. Educating our kids, helping to feed the hungry ones, providing a modicum of health care for them -- gone from the list of priorities, in favor of tax cuts at the top, and the war machine. Let's hope China and India will be kind to us, and share their inventions. And let's hope we'll be able to afford to buy them.)

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* Sure, Obama and Ds are willing to raise fears, too. But they've been relying on the truth, at least insofar as politicians ever do. Their claims about the Ryan/Romney budget and its effects on education, infrastructure, health care, etc, etc, are accurate, and supported. As are their statements about voucherizing (a word Rs have been instructed to avoid) Medicare and its effect on costs.

Like It Is

Here's a former political scientist and researcher on that latest of Romney's lying ads, the one that sent me into insensate frothing:

Now, let me be absolutely clear about something. I've been paying very, very close attention to political ads for a long time. In my former career as an academic I did a lot of research on political ads. I've watched literally every single presidential general election campaign ad ever aired since the first ones in 1952. I've seen ads that were more inflammatory than this one, and ads that were in various ways more reprehensible than this one (not many, but some). But I cannot recall a single presidential campaign ad in the history of American politics that lied more blatantly than this one.

You can get the details on those lies here or here, but it's something quite rare in politics. Usually candidates deceive voters by taking something their opponent says out of context, or giving a tendentious reading to facts, or distorting the effects of policies. But in this case, Romney and his people looked at a policy of the Obama administration to allow states to pursue alternative means of placing welfare recipients in jobs, and said, "Well, how about if we just say that they're eliminating all work requirements and just sending people checks?" I have no idea if someone in the room said, "We could say that, but it's not even remotely true," and then someone else said, "Who gives a crap?", or if nobody ever suggested in the first place that this might be problematic. But either way, they decided that they don't even have to pretend to be telling the truth anymore.

The article, titled "Lies Are The New Truth," is worth a read in full, if only for its inclusion of Newt Gingrich's defense of the ad by saying, essentially, well, yeah, it's not true, but I have no doubt it would be true if it were true. And, as is his wont, throwing in some of his tried and false lines about "the welfare president." (Newt, tell me this: does the fact that jobs disappeared under George Bush faster than your first two wives have anything to do with increased numbers of people getting government aid?)

[I wrote this one a while back, so it's a little dated in terms of timeliness; but not in content, especially since Mitt's come out with two more ads repeating the same lie, and it's clear he plans to build his convention around it, too, despite its demonstrated falsity.]

He Should Know

Okay, so no one lies all the time:

"Big business is doing fine in many places - they get the loans they need, they can deal with all the regulation," said Romney, speaking to a group of supporters at a private fundraiser in Minnesota.

Romney then added that the reason that big businesses are "doing fine in many places" is because they are able to invest their money in "tax havens."

"They know how to find ways to get through the tax code, save money by putting various things in the places where there are low tax havens around the world for their businesses," said Romney.

For making a similar statement, Obama was jumped on with both feet by Rs, including Mitt. To be fair in ways Mitt wasn't to Barack, The Rominee was trying to say it's small businesses that need help, although, as usual, he didn't specify much about what he had in mind. But it's pretty clear, isn't it, that since what he mainly learned at Bain and what made him very rich was how to make use of those very same offshore tax havens, he won't be doing anything about those loopholes, now, will he? And since his pal Paul Ryan has claimed he can balance the budget simply by closing as-yet unnamed loopholes, it doesn't leave a lot of room, does it?