The racial subtext underlying Romney's campaign

[Lief 🗽]

(Note: This article is written sarcastically, in case you don't realize that. I only copied a few paragraphs, but read the entire article for all the examples, as well as links sourcing the quotes.)

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Link

These are not isolated incidents or mistakes. They are a constant, repeated subtext to the campaign Romney and the Republican party is running against President Obama. While Romney cries about personal attacks against his business record and his refusal to release his tax returns, he's been running a nasty and divisive campaign based on race-baiting and xenophobic rhetoric in an effort to drive up his margins among white working-class voters. (And the article doesn't even mention the two attacks that are now apparently the center-piece of the Romney campaign, both racial dog whistles: the false attacks on Obama removing the welfare for work requirements and the false attacks that he's stealing $700 billion from old, white medicare recipients to give to young, minority Obamacare beneficiaries.) If you can't see this, you're either willfully ignorant or not paying attention.

[Vosem]

I don't see it. All that stuff happened and I noticed it, but I don't see how that constitutes a racial subtext. I suppose I'm willfully ignorant.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Everyone knows that "European welfare state" is just codeword for "black people."

[old timey villain]

Everyone knows that "European welfare state" is just codeword for "black people."

But in a way it kind of is.

You really don't see the connection between railing against "the nanny state" and coded swipes against minorities on the welfare system? The GOP can keep denying the strategy until their dying breath but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It's won them many elections on the backs of scared racists.

[Likely Voter]

Well the whole "Obama wants to hand out welfare checks to his base" thing is at least class warfare (which is ironic), but there are racial undertones too

[J. J.]

Well the whole "Obama wants to hand out welfare checks to his base" thing is at least class warfare (which is ironic), but there are racial undertones too

Yes, it is very anti-Caucasian, since a majority of the welfare recipients are white.

[old timey villain]

Well the whole "Obama wants to hand out welfare checks to his base" thing is at least class warfare (which is ironic), but there are racial undertones too

Yes, it is very anti-Caucasian, since a majority of the welfare recipients are white.

I guarantee you most people don't know that. The public perception of welfare (at least in the south) is that there are more black people on welfare.

But I'm glad you said it.

[Ty440]

Well the whole "Obama wants to hand out welfare checks to his base" thing is at least class warfare (which is ironic), but there are racial undertones too

Yes, it is very anti-Caucasian, since a majority of the welfare recipients are white.

I guarantee you most people don't know that. The public perception of welfare (at least in the south) is that there are more black people on welfare.

But I'm glad you said it.

Plenty, Plenty, Plenty of whites on Section 8, Medicaid, Snap benefits, day care assistance around my way, no matter what the racist in the south might think.

[PittsburghSean]

The attacks are disgusting, not to mention flat out lies. But it is not going to stop them. Expect more of this garbage between now and Election Day.

[J. J.]

I was a welfare caseworker for 5 years, and whenever I told someone that I was, they would complain about welfare.  That fell into two groups:

1.  White people who would complain about their brother-in-law, or neighbor, who was almost always white.  The majority.

2.  Black people who would complain about how low class, and generally evil, people on welfare were.  My black supervisor, who grew up in the neighborhood where our office was, wanted to put everyone in camps.  She's a Democrat.

I only had one white guy complaining about "all the black people" getting welfare.  He was sitting in the booth getting a re-evaluation when he said it.  

I think the whole claim of some racial subtext is both silly and probably has a racial subtext of its own.

[Likely Voter]

On Morning Joe today they were talking about how the Welfare attack came out of focus groups with non college white women and the Romney people were surprised at how well the Welfare attack was working.

Clearly in today's age a Willie Horton or a Jesse Helms 'hands' ad could not be done, but you can still strike a chord with white voters to get your point across without saying "Barack Obama is taking your money and giving it to black people."

And while the racial angle may not be overt, there is no hiding the (completely false) Welfare attacks as playing class warfare...all the while Romney is the one that attacks Obama for dividing America with class warfare.

But hey, it appears that this campaign is going to be down and dirty. This attack lowers the bar to the level of how you can just make stuff up. So I guess the next step will be for Axelrod and company to come up with their own ridiculously unfounded attack that gins up part of the Dem base. ...and the campaign will continue to spiral down into the muck

[J. J.]

But hey, it appears that this campaign is going to be down and dirty. This attack lowers the bar to the level of how you can just make stuff up. So I guess the next step will be for Axelrod and company to come up with their own ridiculously unfounded attack that gins up part of the Dem base. ...and the campaign will continue to spiral down into the muck

They tried that with Bane.

[old timey villain]

But hey, it appears that this campaign is going to be down and dirty. This attack lowers the bar to the level of how you can just make stuff up. So I guess the next step will be for Axelrod and company to come up with their own ridiculously unfounded attack that gins up part of the Dem base. ...and the campaign will continue to spiral down into the muck

They tried that with Bane.

Bain - The venture capital company headed by Mitt Romney
Bane - The ruthless villain in "The Dark Knight Rises"

I guess the attacks are working, even subconsciously

[J. J.]

But hey, it appears that this campaign is going to be down and dirty. This attack lowers the bar to the level of how you can just make stuff up. So I guess the next step will be for Axelrod and company to come up with their own ridiculously unfounded attack that gins up part of the Dem base. ...and the campaign will continue to spiral down into the muck

They tried that with Bane.

Bain - The venture capital company headed by Mitt Romney
Bane - The ruthless villain in "The Dark Knight Rises"

I guess the attacks are working, even subconsciously

Yes, the hero is rich and the villain has the support of the lower classes, who try to destroy everything.

[Yelnoc]

Here is a rebuttal from the mind of a (hypothetical) Republican delegate.

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[Link]

I only had one white guy complaining about "all the black people" getting welfare.

You live a sheltered life.  Must be nice.

Watch the news sometime.  You'll be surprised.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY1wcjtJ6WA&feature=player_embedded

The J. J. routine gets old sometimes.

[Vosem]

I only had one white guy complaining about "all the black people" getting welfare.

You live a sheltered life.  Must be nice.

JJ was a welfare caseworker, as he mentioned, and (I could be misremembering) I believe he is in fact black.

Watch the news sometime.  You'll be surprised.

I don't think you can say that to other people.

[Link]

I only had one white guy complaining about "all the black people" getting welfare.

You live a sheltered life.  Must be nice.

JJ was a welfare caseworker, as he mentioned, and (I could be misremembering) I believe he is in fact black.

So your point is racists have the common sense to say racist stuff behind black people's backs and not to their faces?  Okay.

Watch the news sometime.  You'll be surprised.

I don't think you can say that to other people.

Said the fifteen year old.

[Vosem]

I only had one white guy complaining about "all the black people" getting welfare.

You live a sheltered life.  Must be nice.

JJ was a welfare caseworker, as he mentioned, and (I could be misremembering) I believe he is in fact black.

So your point is racists have the common sense to say racist stuff behind black people's backs and not to their faces?  Okay.

Oy. My point is that (like birtherism) the connection between not being a fan of people on welfare and racism is vague and unclear at best.

Watch the news sometime.  You'll be surprised.

I don't think you can say that to other people.

Said the fifteen year old.

Yup, even the fifteen year old can see it's obvious.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Everyone knows that "European welfare state" is just codeword for "black people."

But in a way it kind of is.

You really don't see the connection between railing against "the nanny state" and coded swipes against minorities on the welfare system? The GOP can keep denying the strategy until their dying breath but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It's won them many elections on the backs of scared racists.

Yes, I realize some people believe that the rhetoric of economic individualism is necessarily a veiled form of anti-minority resentment.  But that has little to do with the idea that Romney is talking about how socialism is unAmerican in order to say that Obama is a black.  People that care about Obama's race aren't in need of Mitt reminding them about this little detail.

[Ogre Mage]

Well the whole "Obama wants to hand out welfare checks to his base" thing is at least class warfare (which is ironic), but there are racial undertones too

Yes, it is very anti-Caucasian, since a majority of the welfare recipients are white.

I'm old enough to remember Reagan running against "welfare queens" in the 1980s so it is not hard to imagine who GOP base voters think about when they see these Romney ads.  Somehow, white welfare recipients is not what jumps to mind.

Of course, Romney's claim that Obama is gutting welfare reform is a flat-out lie.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/08/22/159791065/despite-fact-checks-romney-escalates-welfare-work-requirement-charge