by Doctor Science
In September 2012, Paul Krugman observed that Mitt Romney’s talk about “the 47%” being “lucky duckies” was precisely the sort of thing on Fox News or Rush Limbaugh:
The “lucky ducky” trope is clearly, obviously nonsense; equally obviously, it was originally created in an effort to dupe people who didn’t know better. It was and is what Orwell called “prolefeed”, junk aimed at the ignorant masses (ignorant by design), the people who are ready to believe at a moment’s notice that we’ve always been at war with Eastasia.
In Orwell’s vision, however, the Party – and especially the Inner Party – wasn’t supposed to consume this same tripe. It was supposed to understand the true Party agenda and vision (a boot stomping on a human face forever).
The most surprising thing to me about the 2012 election results was that Romney and his people really seem to have thought they would win, as did Karl Rove and the gang at the Ministry of Truth aka Fox News. It became overwhelmingly clear to me at that point that there is no difference between the GOP proles and the Inner Party: both get the prolefeed, both buy into it, both have always been at war with Eastasia.
What Orwell got wrong is thinking that the Inner Party would have better knowledge, especially of history, than the proles. Doublethink works MUCH better when you don’t have actual knowledge to muck it up. In a real life MiniTrue, history is bunk for *everyone*, there is no secret true knowledge at the center of the conspiracy.
Right after the 2012 election, Speaker John Boehner himself called Obamacare “the law of the land”. As Congress’ “local paper” The Hill says:
Republican lawmakers, of course, do know that Obamacare is a law, not a bill
— they just keep calling it a “bill” to make it sound unsettled, something they can oppose and even undermine without betraying their oaths of office.
Are they being liars and/or hypocrites? Not *exactly* – this is doublethink. They believe both that they are upholding the law, of which Obamacare is an example, *and* that Obamacare isn’t really a law, but a bill with delusions of grandeur. They can take an oath to uphold the Constitution and work for the good of the people and government, and also plot to undermine the law and destroy the government because their side didn’t win an election.
What Orwell got wrong is that the Inner Party’s vision of the future would be “a boot, comforting and being upheld by a loving human face, forever.” And they would see nothing in this to which *anyone* could reasonably object.
Republican politicians have no interest in serving the nation. Their first interest is in serving themselves, followed by an interest in serving the shadow party leadership cabal and the lobbyists. The only hope of avoiding default is that the lobbyists and some of the cabal members will talk them off the edge.
Well, yeah, Orwell did have a bit of a liberal tilt, so it’s not surprising that he’d figure that the Inner Partei would value accurate, truthful information.
But no, prolefud all the way up
It should be clear that the video clip of Romney’s infamous 47% declaration does not contain the phrase “lucky duckies”, or anything similar.
Laura:
Republican politicians being interested first in “serving themselves” does not differentiate them from other politicians.
The trouble is NOT that they’re self-interested, that’s true of (almost) all humans. The problem is that the job they want to see themselves doing is NOT governance, it is performance. And they are currently performing the HECK of it.
Slarti:
You’re right, he never used the phrase “lucky duckies”, that was a different meme. But he did say:
whew. reading that Romney quote in the context of the current tea-bagger grand mal makes me want to find someone who says there’s no difference between the two parties and punch him/her square in the neck.
can you imagine what kind of lunacy Romney ( & Paul!) would’ve unleashed if he’d won, given the tea-baggers’ legislative output?
Here’s the text of Romney’s statement during the fundraiser in question:
“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government**, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax.
“[M]y job is is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
True, “lucky duckies” is not among the words used.
As to “anything similar” I refer you to “it”, uttered twice in the above statement, not to mention all of the other words in Romney’s statement.
The “lucky ducky” slur meme began with a Wall Street Journal editorial in 2003 and was continued on that page until … forever.
The nearly identical formulation was repeated thereafter, sometimes with the term lucky-ducky attached and sometimes not by Orrin Hatch, the Cantor kids, and right-wing TV/internet/talk radio, the latter of which used to be called the right-wing “wurlitzer”, to which I realize Slart is NOT a subscriber.
Interestingly, Mitt Romney was reluctant to mention Massachusetts RomneyCare, which to his credit now makes sure that the percentage of insured population in that state has reached 98%, if my numbers are correct.
Nor did he use the term in question … “lucky-ducky” … in front of Republican fundraisers or on the campaign stumps, or in the debates, to refer to the citizens of Massachusetts who now have health care insurance under Obam …., sorry … RomneyCare.
Which is difficult to understand, seeing as how “lucky duckies” are precisely what they be.
President Obama, unlike the unelected current President Romney, may have used the words “lucky-ducky” to describe Mass. residents, I’m not sure, but if he didn’t, my estimation of him suffers once again.
**Romney also neglected to mention that in addition to the 47%, there are tens of millions of Americans who voted for him, not a few in the room that night, who are “dependent” on government in many ways, but let’s mention one …Medicare…. that judging from Republican Party statements the folks in question are NOT aware is a government entitlement.
They thought they found it as a prize in cereal box, I guess.
Sorry, Doc, I promised myself I would stay off threads initiated by your posts for awhile, or at least keep it brief, but …….
You should be apologizing for your improper ellipsis, if anything, Count. (I miss Gary.)
errr… Slarti’s 100% correct here.
yes, it’s true that Romney was playing to the same anti-welfare sentiment that the “lucky ducky” phrase stirs up. but DocS’s sentence up there implies that Romney himself used the phrase. and he didn’t.
Slarti is 100% correct about the precise term “lucky ducky”.
But he doesn’t account for all of the quacking going on at that fundraiser.
I don’t think we saw the full range of Basil-isms from Romney that night.
I couldn’t find the bit of Basil Fawlty quacking like a duck, but this runs the gamut:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwn2ftCHENI
and this:
Basil Fawlty: So, uh, this is your new menu.
Colonel Hall: [reading] Duck with orange; duck with cherries; duck surprise.
Mrs. Hall: What’s duck surprise?
Basil Fawlty: Er… that’s duck without orange or cherries.
Colonel Hall: I mean, is this all there is – duck?
Basil Fawlty: Umm… yes… done, of course, in three extremely different ways.
Colonel Hall: And what do you do if you don’t like duck?
Basil Fawlty: Ah, well, if you don’t like duck, uhhh, you’re rather stuck.
I can’t decide if Boehner should play General Zod and Ted Cruz Ursa, or vice versa.
GENERAL ZOD: This “super” man is nothing of the kind. I have discovered his weakness.
URSA: Yes?
ZOD: He… [searching for the bon mot] cares. He actually cares about these . . . . . .these People. These earth People.
URSA: Sentimental idiot.
Ugh – I’d say Boehner is definitely Ursa, who was totally in thrall to Zod; but then I have a mental image of Boehner in Ursa’s outfit and fall on the floor giggling. (Not that Cruz in Zod’s threads is any better an image…)
See here: http://collider.com/uploads/imageGallery/Terence_Stamp/terence_stamp_image_superman_2_general_zod.jpg
Romney did not use the specific phrase “lucky duckies”, so slarti’s point is true as stated.
The term “lucky duckies” was used, prominently and famously, in a WSJ editorial to make *exactly* the point Romney was making in his “47%” speech, and has ever since then been used quite widely by folks making *exactly* the same point in public fora.
So, Doc Science’s use of the term to characterize Romney’s position seems quite appropriate. To me, anyway.
So, Doc Science’s use of the term to characterize Romney’s position seems quite appropriate. To me, anyway.
Doc wrote, “….precisely the sort of thing on Fox News or Rush Limbaugh:” The grammar is awkward. There seems to be a word or two missing….something along the lines of “precisely the sort of thing one routinely sees on…..”
A trope is a trope of course of course. The Slartibartfast observation strikes me as a distinction without a difference.
The good Doc has written an interesting post. Yes, even the ‘elite’ of the true believers are (gasp!) true believers. An interesting example is to examine the back and forth as between Gorbachev and the rest of the high communist apparatchiks as they struggled with reform just prior to his ascension to power. Even Gorby’s most radical reform arguments are couched in prolefeed terms (Marxist cant to you damned-for-all eternity non-believers).
Of course, there are always true cynics who gravitate to power under any system. They are characterized as sociopaths (or worse) by our set of true believers who hold, contrary to all evidence to the contrary, that it doesn’t characterize our elites.
Jon Schwarz’s “A Tiny Revolution” is a zesty antidote to that particular kind of groupthink.
the statement about “a boot, comforting and being upheld by a loving human face,” brought to my mind the exact situation in Rand Paul’s run for the Senate. where a man actually stepped on a woman’s head.
Coincidence or what? and we sure seem to have always been at war with Eastasia, haven’t we?
I don’t much know if the (R)’s are sociopaths, or if they’re eating their own dog food, or what.
IMO Ted Cruz, specifically, is a flaming @sshole, but that’s sort of independent of the whole shutdown thing. It’s not an uncommon opinion, apparently.
And it sort of doesn’t matter. There are jerks everywhere.
The salient problem with these guys – the folks who are bottling up the CR – is that they are IN THE WAY.
I understand that there are procedural means to strongly encourage the House to vote straight up and down on a clean CR. If that’s so, that would be great.
Or, perhaps the non-fanatically-opposed-to-the-ACA-no-matter-what-smoking-ruin-is-left-behind faction of the House (R)’s will somehow take matters in hand.
Either way, it’s time to get a clean CR through the House and Senate and move the hell on.
Whatever is bugging these guys, they’re getting about 1,000 times the level of attention that they deserve.
Most of the Tea Party folks have been in office, what, two or three years? Less than five?
It would be nice if they’d actually do some constructive governing before they start breaking stuff.
But either way, it’s time to get them the hell out of the way.
This, to me, translates roughly as: your argument is invalid.
Which is nice and convenient and all and permits you to attribute something said by the WSJ editorial staff in friggin’ 2002 to Mitt Romney at a 2012 event.
It’s truthy, so who needs truth?
As to whether Mitt was really thinking something like that: your ability (and that of anyone else I’ve ever run into; not meaning to make you out to be horribly deficient in some way) to divine what others are thinking from their words hasn’t been especially impressive, that I have noticed, so you should excuse me if I decline to take your word for it.
There are other layers of this that we could get into, but my one and only argument here is that Mitt didn’t say the thing that was attributed to him in quotes.
If you don’t dispute that, we’re done here.
Romney and Rove believed the fix was in as it had been during the Bush years. The GOP passed all those beautiful Black Box Voting machine laws and their operatives had been merrily shaving votes (sometimes just blatantly stuffing the electronic ballot boxes beyond any reasonable semblance of reality) for years without a peep from the victims. What happened? Maybe the vote shavers hated Mitt as much as the rest of the nation. Or maybe they saw the writing on the wall and figured the Justice Dept just might not roll over this time. Don’t expect this to continue. Those machines are still out there ready to screw america again.
Fred —
The guy who handled the voting machines for Bush was scheduled to testify before Congress. Unfortunately, he took a ride in a small plane …
The guy who replaced him was nowhere near as good.
You can shade the voting only so much before people start noticing. My dart-board guess is that it’s about 5%. In 2008, Obama won by a big enough margin that it couldn’t be nullified by shifting a few votes; everybody hated Bush and McCain wasn’t at all appetizing.
There are other layers of this that we could get into, but my one and only argument here is that Mitt didn’t say the thing that was attributed to him in quotes.
If you don’t dispute that, we’re done here.
Don’t dispute it a bit. However, in the context of the discussion it is of little or no relevance IMHO. The ‘truthiness’ of the post does not hinge on whether or not Mitty boy actually uttered those exact words.
If you dispute that, we’re done here.