PLANK SEPTEMBER 19, 2012
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Like all great works of literature, Mitt Romney’s peroration on the unwashed 47 percent requires multiple readings if you want to appreciate its rich complexity. One meaning that eluded me initially was its implicit rationale for the voter suppression Republicans are promoting in the name of fighting election fraud.
If “there are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what” because they are “dependent upon government” and “believe that they are victims” who “are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it,” and if the only sensible thing for Romney to do is “not to worry about those people” because “I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives”—if all that is true, then ignoring them really isn’t going to be enough. Not if they constitute fully 47 percent of the electorate. You need to block their path to the polls. Nothing too overt here—just a little petty harassment. They aren’t the best-organized people to begin with, so all you have to do is shut down their ministers’ souls-to-polls bus operations on Sundays, require a driver’s license and maybe even proof of citizenship. That sort of thing.
I’m not suggesting that national voter suppression efforts are being directed out of Romney’s campaign headquarters. If they were, Romney, who’s famous for mastering the data, would have a better grip on who those never-gonna-vote-for-Romney voters are. (As several commentators have pointed out; they aren’t the 46.4 percent who don’t pay income tax, many of whom—a lot of the elderly, for instance—don’t much care for Obama.) Whether these unreachables constitute fully 47 percent of the population I couldn’t say (though I’d wager they more likely do today than before the Boca Raton video went viral).
As it happens, the threat posed by voter suppression has diminished somewhat in recent weeks, with important legal victories in Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. It’s a sign of how brazen the GOP’s efforts are that northern courts are swatting them back, even without the “pre-clearance” Voting Rights Act tool available to plaintiffs in the south. If the Republicans lose the presidential election—and it’s looking pretty likely that they will—they should re-think their strategy of cherry-picking the electorate, because in addition to being illegal it doesn’t work very well. If 47 percent of the population doesn’t like you, it’s worth wondering why.
6 comments
Whether these unreachables constitute fully 47 percent of the population I couldn't say Paul Krugman has a graph on his blog from yesterday that answers that. The key point is the 70% of 30-60 year olds pay federal income taxes and and over 80% of them pay some form of federal taxes. http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/18/taxes-over-the-life-cycle/
- sighthnd
September 19, 2012 at 10:15am
Not so fast on the voter suppression optimism, TN. Florida already succeeded in thwarting voter registration efforts by groups such as the League of Women Voters. The recent Pennsylvania appeals court decision is a cause for hope, but does not close the case. And as evinced by that decision, which was partly about the haste with which the state is trying to implement the law, the voter suppression forces will be able to introduce new, more nuanced or less rushed tools for restricting the electorate in coming years. I fear we'll see a lot more of these efforts to undermine democracy down the line.
- Thunderroad
September 19, 2012 at 11:12am
"If 47 percent of the population doesn’t like you, it’s worth wondering why." Good point, but wasted on the top 5%. They know why that 47% don't like them -- they insist on work, on earning your way, on Ayn Randian "excellence of the individual". And if you ain't excellent, you're a lazy parasite living off the dole. In other words, having gotten into the 5%, they enjoy pretending they DESERVE to be in the 5%, due to the rewards of their hard work. And this philosophy is quite comforting to them. "Wondering why" is NOT comforting to them, because it might reveal the reality that the only reason they're in the 5% is a lot of luck combined with their hard work, either their own or their parents or their parent's parents. Which means they might be expected to give up a little, a very little, of their awesome incomes in service of the 95%. It's much more convenient to let some of them starve while not thinking about it.
- AllanL5
September 19, 2012 at 11:45am
Allan. Math counts. You mean the top .05%
- drofnats1
September 19, 2012 at 12:04pm
I just hope Superpac money and voter supression do not work this time. Because if they do, there will be a lot more of it.
- Nusholtz
September 19, 2012 at 3:05pm
I share your concern, Nusholtz. But there will be a lot more of both phenomena, regardless of who wins or how well they work this time. The Superpac money will grow unless and until there is a progressive majority on the Supreme Court to block it. The voter suppression may vary more, depending on the vagaries of which party controls a given state's government. But in those states where the Republicans are in charge they'll simply find more creative routes for voter suppression if necessary.
- Thunderroad
September 19, 2012 at 4:41pm