One of the remarkable features of the modern Republican party and its Tea Party ground troops is their ability to spin on a dime and rally behind anyone they see as their own and defend them against all charges, even if it involves a total reversal of things they had previously held to be really important to them.
The examples are many but the most glaring was with Sarah Palin. Once they had embraced her to their collective bosom, her many personal failings were ignored and she and her family with all its drama were hailed as representing ‘real America’, and those who were not as ignorant as her nor had teenage children who dropped out of school to become unwed parents were elitists who were not worthy of high office because they would not understand the .issues that ‘real Americans’ face. If Barack Obama’s family had displayed even a fraction of the issues surrounding Palin, they would have been portrayed as symbols of all that is wrong with America.
This kind of hypocrisy is so prevalent that it did not surprise me in the least that Mitt Romney’s political problems with having stashed his money in off-shore tax shelters in many countries are being dismissed by his supporters as not only not worthy of comment but as something to be admired as what a ‘real Americans’ would do.
So take note. All of us who keep our money in the neighborhood bank are effete, unpatriotic snobs who do not represent ‘the heartland’.
The Daily Show could run for 2 hours every day just showing clips of these about-faces. I love it when they do that!
It is certainly what they would do (if they had the money.) And we know that only conservatives are “real Americans” — don’t we?
Swiss bank accounts are so 20th Century. Nowadays Bahamian or Cayman Islands bank accounts are much more chic. That’s because the Swiss Federal Banking Authority has erased the difference between tax evasion and tax fraud. This was due to pressure from the the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the G20. As of 2009 foreign countries’ finance ministries may examine accounts held by non-Swiss nationals.
Don’t forget that Romney should pay less taxes because taxes are bad, but poor people should pay more taxes because… ummm… because they have it too easy and need to be punished?