Why the Romney revelation will matter
by David Atkins
It’s true that there has been altogether too much schadenfreude over Romney’s video denigrating half of Americans as freeloaders. Pundits across the spectrum have pre-emptively declared the campaign dead, when the evidence shows that “gaffes” tend not to have much impact.
Indeed, this election should be less susceptible to movement based on these sorts of slips and revelations than most, given the very static electorate this cycle. So will it matter? Probably not much for this election. If Romney were going to win the election, he probably would have been able to do so regardless. The video’s existence doubtless makes his road harder, but one or two good debates against the President could theoretically even the score. Is Romney likely to win? I think not. But it’s certainly possible.
But where the controversy matters is in the conversation that the election will take over the next month, and the impact that conversation is likely to have after the election. The “47% vs 53%” meme has been simmering on the right for a long time now (remember this guy?), and simmering just under the insincere media discourse about “entitlements.”
Americans everywhere assume that there are a bunch of other people in the country on the take. And why not? Most Americans are seeing their own standards of living decline even as the country goes further into debt and even basic governance has become impossible. It’s natural for them to assume that someone is on the take. It’s just a question of who. And this, of course, is where the failure of the press comes into play. With people confused and seeking answers, it should be the job of the media to supply accurate information about who is benefiting from the suffering of the middle class. But since the press has failed to do its job, Americans have been left to turn to their instincts about how the world works. Liberals rightly assume–and the facts back us up–that the wealthy and the corporate sector have hoovered up all the losses of the middle class. Conservatives, meanwhile, assume that various “others” are to blame.
Without a direct and honest conversation about who exactly is taking the benefits, this mass confusion will continue to persist, making it easier for the Very Serious People to cut Medicaid and Social Security out of “necessity.”
That’s why images like this will be so valuable:
It could well be that Mitt Romney’s insensitive and erroneous comments will save all of us from the nightmare of Simpson-Bowles by forcing an enlightening conversation into the open prior to November.
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