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NationofChange / Op-Ed
Published: Wednesday 30 May 2012
“Trump signifies everything Romney presumably doesn’t want people to associate with himself — conspicuous wealth, arrogance, hubris, and a distinct preference for money over all other human values.”
Romney- Trump in 2012!
What could Romney’s handlers be thinking when they hyped his connection with Donald Trump — fundraising with Trump, offering supporters the possibility of a meal with Trump, relishing Trump’s attention and endorsement?
Trump signifies everything Romney presumably doesn’t want people to associate with himself — conspicuous wealth, arrogance, hubris, and a distinct preference for money over all other human values.
Trump, like Romney, represents almost everything that’s wrong with the American economy today — an unprecedented amount of wealth and power at the very top, widespread insecurity and declining real wages for everyone else, and a form of casino capitalism that places huge bets with other peoples’ money and depends on everyone else to bail it out when the bets turn sour.
But wait a minute. Perhaps Romney’s handlers are smarter than they seem. Maybe Mitt has decided to let it all hang out. Rather than try to hide what’s obvious to everyone, the new strategy is to make Romney’s liabilities into assets by flaunting them. Be even bigger and bolder. Money rules!
In fact, they’re mulling an even bigger and bolder move. They recall how Bill Clinton’s choice of Al Gore as running mate in 1992 — someone very much like Clinton — accentuated Clinton’s youthful energy, the new generation he represented, and the new start Clinton wanted to give America.
So they figure Mitt’s choice of Trump as running mate will allow Mitt to celebrate his boundless capacity to make money, the “I’ve got mine and the hell with you” financiers and CEOs he represents, and the social Darwinism that he and the regressive right are convinced will be good for America.
The new bumper-sticker: ROMNEY-TRUMP IN 2012. YOU’RE FIRED!
This article was originally posted on Robert Reich's blog.
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ABOUT Robert Reich
ROBERT B. REICH, one of the nation’s leading experts on work and the economy, is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. Time Magazine has named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including his latest best-seller, “Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future;” “The Work of Nations,” which has been translated into 22 languages; and his newest, an e-book, “Beyond Outrage.” His syndicated columns, television appearances, and public radio commentaries reach millions of people each week. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, and Chairman of the citizen’s group Common Cause. His widely-read blog can be found at www.robertreich.org.
10 comments on "Romney- Trump in 2012!"
May 31, 2012 5:15am
Thanks to decades of Ronnie Raygun's nationwide education cuts that led the US into this shameful dumbing down allowing Poor Citizenship, Constitutional Ignorancc and Peter Principle Incompetence to be rewarded, the Amerikkkan Electorate will again ignore these facts: Mitt made billions of ill-gotten dollars by sending US jobs overseas and Trump went Belly-Up running a Real Casino, a business where the House Never Loses!
That is a Major Blunder even by Predatory Capitalismo Ayn Rand's soul-less standards.
Their campaign phrase should be:
ROMNEY-TRUMP IN 2012. WE'RE BANKRUPT - LITERALLY AND MORALLY !!!
May 31, 2012 3:35am
Joe, can we have some evidence of teachers inflicting socialist propaganda on innocent children? That is a lame conserviative cliche that doesn't bear up to scrutiny (unless you listen to Fox). In fact, the most vocally political of my colleagues have been self-described conservatives. As per the governement being to blame for the sad state of affairs, this is true. However, given the ridiculous influence - dare we say ownership? - on government, the real blame lies there. When John Boehner can walk around on the floor of Congress handing out checks to his colleagues who supported the tobacco interests, it's pretty clear who runs the show. Perhaps the recent defections from ALEC shows an ethical turn in the right direction, but I'm not holding my breath.
May 30, 2012 11:54am
Dr. Reich is wrong because what's wrong with the American economy today is not the people who managed to survive it thus far, but rather the government that has completely destroyed it. The American government prosecutes children for operating lemonade stands on their own property, the American government has achieved the highest rate of imprisonment in the whole world, and the American government - republicans and democrats - can't even balance it's own budget. The American government slaughtered native Americans and took their land, and legalized slavery for 100 years and followed it up with legalized segregation, and took the People into a wide variety of wars. Now, this monster that we call "the government" is in complete control of economy, health care, education, housing, energy, as so on. America was designed to be a Nation where people have to be independent because they are free but the American government has created a Nation of dependent people who cannot survive freedom, and an economy that is crumbling because of the government. When his barn is burning, the wise farmer opens the doors and lets the livestock go free, but that's not what the American government is doing.
May 31, 2012 5:29am
And Who controls are government? Corporate America, and other special interest. Our government is the best money can buy!
May 30, 2012 12:07pm
Read "Predator Nation" by Charles H Ferguson and find out how big corporations and especially investment companies / banks have desroyed the economies of the world to line their own pcockets. Learn about how the powerful will always rape the weak and poor when given free rein. Get angry at the corporations who now own and control our government. Then you'll be on the righ track. So long as people rail against government and enable the corporatocracy to dictate the rules we will only get deeper and deeper into the mire that they have created. There are rules (laws) against thieves and murderers and we all agree they are needed. There used to be rules preventing corporations from theft, corruption, rape and murder. The pawns of the corporatocracy eliminated all restrictions on banking in the nineties, and they have been raping and pillaging us ever since. Government isn't the problem. LACK of government (rules and regulations against corporate crime and unwillingness to enforce the ones that do exist) is now the problem. THINK and don't just repeat the pablum that Fox News feeds you!
May 30, 2012 2:15pm
Thank you Tony. I'll get to Predator after I finish Ameritopia, and I was planning on Trickle Down Tyranny after that. I agree with much of what you've said, and please don't be offended that I put the blame on government. I believe many legislators are bought and paid for by lobby money, I also believe there's plenty of offense by the "government" such as school teachers indoctrinating kids into socialist agenda, and university professors collecting their big fat paychecks courtesy of state tax-payers - and never resisting tuition hikes. I also don't see any way to blame corporations for the murder of 53 million innocent babies - that is entirely the fault of the US Supreme Court. They all deserved jury trials prior to execution. I do see corporations behind the war on drugs, and the resulting disproportionate imprisonment of my dark-skinned brothers and sisters. However, the judge and the prosecutor and the law are all government - as is the prison and guards.
Now getting back to the point, so improperly stated by Dr. Reich, Mr Romney does not represent the cause of economic problems.
By the way, Fox is tame, so I prefer Savage, and I was ejected from the Berlin Wall under armed guard and I was similarly ejected from the Michigan House, and Republican State Delegate Convention. Deja Vu Comrad.
May 30, 2012 11:14am
I insist that writers on this site cease equating mitt romney with vultures. Vultures do not deserve that kind of abuse. Vultures have the decency to pick the flesh off the bones of the deceased. romney would seem to be too impatient for such formalities, insisting on picking the flesh of the living. One can certainly draw parallels with vultures circling prospective meals and I think that makes for a workable metaphor for romney's "business" career as well as his campaign for the White House, but he is nothing remotely as enobled as an actual vulture.
The fact that he now wants to team up with trump, simply proves that there is no ass that this man will not kiss (provided that ass is part of the 1%) to be president. That trait alone she be enough to disqualify him for the office.
May 30, 2012 11:04am
Imagine if american presidential elections were rigged, with the winner picked in advance by the owners. Now imagine the owners have decided Obama gets another term. What could the Republicans do to make sure nobody is surprised when they lose? Enter the Donald...
May 30, 2012 10:58am
I can only see the positives in this marriage of CONvenience. Mr Mittens has the personality of a parasite, yet The Donald has personality enough to cover 10 Mittens. The Donald likes commanding puppets and Mittens is akin to a vantriloquist's dummy/puppet and will say anything put in his ear.
The only thing I can see is that if this two-some really does hitch up and gets elected, then some time in early Feb 2013, we will hear The Donald tell Mittens - YOUR FIRED! Now pack up, leave the Oval Office/White House and don't come back.
May 30, 2012 9:48am
In Mett and Donald we have candidates of the vulture circling the society who see war on borrowed money as a means of stimulating the economy, advocating what a "great job" Bush/Dick & Co. did. This election is going to be between the advocates of vultures and the advocates of humane society. The results would be either the survival or the deluge we all want to avoid.