I have loved some of Brett Easton Ellis’ novels. While he himself is a difficult person to have positive feelings about, his work is excellent and unique. Reading and watching American Psycho has been singularly useful to me in explaining corporate behaviour in the age of #Occupy.
And so when I saw this clip of Mitt Romney talking about the mortal lock that President Obama has on poor people:
I couldn’t help but think of this clip of Patrick Bateman saying much the same thing:
Now sure, Mitt’s knife is only metaphorical, but he’s running to have enough power to stab everyone.
It should not be overlooked, by the way, that even when he’s alone, Mitt Romney lies like a cheap rug. It’s also worth taking a look at where this supposed Obama-loving, no-tax-paying, freedom-hating 47% live.
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American Psycho was intended to satirize the 80’s culture of self-absorption. Thirty years later, the right wing has moved beyond the parody. Apart from the stabby stabby bit, Patrick Bateman’s outlook is pretty much mainstream.
Except the dinner scene where he pretends to care about social causes. Those are done now.
Damn, you’re right. It’s deeply unsettling that the current conservative ideal is more overtly evil than Patrick Bateman.
That was scary. I can actually imagine someone like Rmoney, or some other entitled 1%-er, doing that. Like, they could get away with it, much more easily than if they murdered someone who wasn’t homeless.
I worry that you might be doing the same thing as him here…
Oh no, by all means, don’t feel the need to elaborate on that point at all. It’s perfectly clear who “him” is, and how “writing a blog post” is the same as what either Mitt or Bateman do.
Sorry, I’ll elaborate. A common tactic used by Romney is to villainize the “other.” Painting him as a psychopath is kind of the same thing. A more effective repudiation of his stance in this case would have been to actually point out how the policies he advocates would harm a large portion of the “53%”. It would at least be less slimy.
It frustrated me to see this post from you because I typically find you to be pretty eloquent and not petty when slamming American conservatives. Sorry for being unclear before.
I was noting the rhetorical similarities between his speech discussing the “dependency” of the 47% on government handouts and the speech that Bateman makes when he says that Al’s problem is that he has a bad attitude. Your suggestion is entirely unrelated to my stance. I am not making a point about policy – I am making a point about Mitt’s attitudes toward and beliefs about lower-income Americans.
Ah, I see. You’ll forgive my confusion, I hope. That’s only a single line in the American Psycho clip, somewhat overshadowed by the “You smell like shit, Al.” Plus your line about Mitt’s knife being metaphorical may have distracted me from the “attitude.” And don’t mistake this for me making a moral equivalence between advocating policies that hurt people and making a blog post. It seems so obvious to me that I didn’t bother specifying it. Maybe that was a mistake. I’m merely lodging a complaint for the method, that’s all.
Slightly off-topic to this particular reply, I was physically shocked when I realized that Romney does not think people are entitled to food and shelter. I think that might be more brutal than falsely implying that poors are poor because of laziness.
You may be a few months late on the comparison, Cromm.
http://thisishistorictimes.com/2012/01/hip-to-be-square/
I really liked the two clips you showed, but Brett Ellis is one of the worst writers I have ever read. I remember a review of this book when it came out which I read somewhere which said that some feminists found it an outrage to women. The critic said that the only outrage was to the English language. I agreed completely. I couldn’t believe I read the whole thing.
More interesting is the English writer Robin Cook who had to change his pen name to Derek Raymond so as not to be confused with the best-selling author of crap. Try his book, “I was Dora Suarez”. That will knock your socks off.
And by “villainizing the other,” Romney blithely dismisses half the population of the country over which he so desparately wants to preside.
Perhaps psycopath is too strong a characterization for him, but his attitudes toward average Americans, and his inability to even SEE the population as a whole, do come across as sociopathic.
Any person who runs for public office must expect his or her every word, expression, and leaked comment to be examined closely. If the candidate demonstrates a pattern of antisocial, unkind, short-sighted behavior, he should expect to be called out on it.
The fact that Romney has publicly verified the video, and stood by his remarks, only makes it worse. He is unfit to care for a dog, let alone a country.
It’s almost as if he’s *trying* to lose the election, so that in 2016 any halfway decent Republican (there are some of those still, right? … Right? Bueller?)… will look like a compassionate genius by comparison.
The problem with the whole conservative whine over ‘entitlements’ is that they seem to present it as if there’s this massive chunk of the population (43%) just sitting around doing nothing, expecting the “producers” of the world to wait on them hand and foot. The truth is that the people they are denouncing as ‘moochers’ not only work harder than they do, but do much more necessary work. If toilet scrubbers went on strike, that would matter. If Mitt Romney “went Galt,” all that would happen is more people would make more money and less jobs would be shipped to China.
But the people are poor because of a bad work ethic or ‘choices’ is the bullshit we have had ever since Reagan invented the welfare queen.
Don’t count on it. I thought no Republican statesman could seem dumber than Bush; then we get a campaign season full of Sarah Palin. Then I thought we had hit rock bottom, until Rick Santorum and Michelle Bachmann made Palin look like a proper statesman. It can, in fact, just keep getting worse. Think how much worse the Romney campaign has been than the McCain campaign, even though 2008 was pretty ugly already.
Oh bullshit. It is a difficult read because of the style (stream of consciousness narrative), but it wasn’t poorly written in that style.
I agree, 100%. I wish politicians would act like this all the time, and not just in closed door meetings (though obviously I understand why they don’t).
Here’s a decent article on how damaging it is for him to have admitted that he disregards nearly half of the country:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/09/mitt-romneys-clinging-to-guns-or-religion-moment/262496/
Why would you want to be president if you really felt this way?
Because they think that poor people are like people who are using a crutch even after their broken leg has healed. They need the steely resolve and “tough love” of a Republican to wean them off the government teat. They think they’re being helpful by making poverty so awful that people will abandon their cushy welfare checks for the dignity of honest work.
Of course none of them know what poverty is or how it works, or they’d be pushing for bigger anti-poverty programs instead of gutting the few that exist. You want to eradicate poverty? Fix the schools and provide more scholarships and small business grants. Make the fall from financial grace a stumbling block, not a bottomless pit.
But instead both parties buy into the lie that the way to fix poverty is to harrangue the poor until they locate their bootstraps.
Sadly, you have a very good point.
My four predictions for the 2016 Republican nominees:
1)The Insane Clown Posse: the first presidential candidate to be a duo. Will be running on a campaign to teach the controversy about fuckin’ miracles. Their attitude to science is identical to the GOP:
2)A parrot that just squawks talking points. “SQUAWK! SOCIALISM!! BRAAH! FAMILY VALUES!”
3)Some guy who smears shit all over himself while laughing maniacally.
4)A fundie who wants to nuke Florida because he thinks the phallic shape of the state is indecent.
I really have no idea if it will get better any time soon. I would really like it to.
Re #4: I’ll just leave this here…
I pay a higher percentage of my income in income tax than Mitt does. So which of us benefits from government revenue?
But that can’t be true, Crommunist. Mitt’s wife said they had lean years when the two of them had to live off selling Mitt’s stock while in college. Truly, they know what it means to be poor after having gone through that!
Ahh, but since he pays a higher absolute amount than you (presumably) that means you’re the leech bring society down. You should be ashamed.
If you think Romney is evil, take a look at his running mate Paul Ryan. Ryan is an Ayn Rand worshiper–except for her atheist of course. Ryan’s Secret Tape is found at the Huff Post.
Ryan said that Rand’s writing “inspired me so much that it’s required reading in my office for all my interns and my staff. We start with Atlas Shrugged … We go to Fountainhead (note: that’s the one whose hero commits a terrorist act) … (and) I always go back to… Francisco d’Anconia’s speech [in Atlas Shrugged] on money when I think about monetary policy.”
What did d’Anconia say in Atlas Shrugged? “Do not envy a worthless heir … Do not think (his wealth) should have been distributed among you; loading the world with fifty parasites instead of one … ” Rand/d’Anconia also says “To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you … “