Now that Romney is standing by his remarks in the video, it's time to keep some critical things in mind when talking about it.
• These are now mainstream beliefs in the Republican Party - you can hear them all them time on talk radio. Rush Limbaugh IS what the Republican Party really stands for. Romney said what they think behind closed doors and among 'friends' (with big checkbooks).
• Romney didn't move to the right when he picked Paul Ryan - he was embracing a soul mate. Privatizing Social Security, Medicare as a voucher program? Check!
• The only thing keeping Romney from openly embracing Ayn Rand is his church and her atheism. In his own mind, he IS John Galt.
• Forgetting to mention the troops in his speech? Hey - they're just government employees, a special kind of parasite. REAL Americans are too busy starting their own businesses to put on a uniform so they can sponge off Uncle Sam. That, or they're doing critical missionary work - in France.
• That awkward grin, those nervous laughs? Romney can't help himself when he's shoveling out bullshit for the gullible - he can't believe anyone is stupid enough to buy it. To use a Wall Street term, he's looking out at the crowd and seeing muppets.
• It's all about manners - polite people try not to show their contempt for the masses in public. At least they didn't when Romney was growing up. He's still adjusting to a world where they now brag about it and expect to be applauded for it.
• There are two kinds of people - the bad kind who don't pay income taxes because they don't have any money, and the good kind who don't pay any income taxes because they have enough money to hide it offshore in the Caymans and qualify for all kinds of tax breaks. Guess which kind Mitt thinks he is.
Things to Watch For:
Just how soon, and which, figures on the Right will move to embrace Mitt's talking points openly. How they'll try to spin it away from the sheer arrogance of the privileged into a discussion that they just want to reward 'success'. Watch as the media desperately tries to cope with a story that just can't be fair and balanced to death. (NPR opened this morning by referring to it as a story breaking in the LIBERAL Mother Jones Magazine. And we all know LIBERAL anything can be automatically discounted.) Watch them NOT talk about how well this all fits with what Occupy is trying to tell us even as the media repeats over and over again "They have no clear message."
Interesting times. In a sane world Romney's campaign and the Republican Party would be over now...