We can thank Wisconsin for allowing the Republican ogliarchs that lead the party to finally just come out and say what they really think. They understand no matter how elitist and out of touch they sound that oceans of corporate money will give them an advantage in the message wars. For example Mitt Romney says President Obama is out of touch because: “He says we need more firemen, more policemen, more teachers. Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did. It’s time for us to cut back on government and help the American people.” That quote is just weird
The real message from Wisconsin is that the Supreme Court has effectively cancelled American democracy by allowing unlimited spending to corrupt our electoral system. Which of these competing messages makes more sense? Republicans say cops, teachers and firefighters are bad for America, while Democrats say that the Citizens United decision is strangling American democracy. One suspects the answer to that question depends on how one gathers the news, with regular Fox viewers believing that teachers and cops are living lives of opulence and luxury on the public dole.
There may be another explanation for Romney tossing cops under the bus. On June 6 the National Memo reported on Romney’s penchant as a college student to impersonate police officers. It is one thing to toss on the leather jacket and snazzy striped tear-away pants as the cop in the Village People. But Romney was actually pulling over motorists, complete with siren and red light, when he was in character. So maybe in some sort of weird Freudian psycho way, Romney wants to prove that he is no longer interested in impersonating the cops by denigrating their worth to society.
Impersonating the police while he was in college is illustrative of two Romney truisms. First, this is further confirmation that he is one weird dude. As one of his classmates told the reporter: “we thought it was all pretty weird. We all thought, ‘Wow, that’s pretty creepy.’ And after that, we didn’t have much interaction with him.”
The second truism the story shows about Romney is that he is a bully. He likes to be able to fire people who perform services for him. Romney led a group who attacked a gay classmate, holding him down while Romney hacked off his hair. Now we learn he was impersonating a police officer and pulling motorists over while attending college. Life for Romney is one huge power trip.
Not long ago a political attack on firefighters, teachers and cops would have been unfathomable, and anyone crazy enough to actually express such sentiments would have been widely considered unfit to hold public office. The Republican party has gone so far to the right that their nominee for the presidency is now able to use such an attack as an applause line at a campaign event. Just like when the crowd applauded Rick Santorum for calling the president a snob for wanting everyone to go to college.
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