Short one today.
I’ve seen the following meme in comment threads:
“Personally, I haven’t lived a life privileged and middle-class enough to find these differences- between Obama and Romney, Democrat and Republican … to be insignificant”
There’s also the typical “if you are a woman, how could you think of voting for Romney??” (Who said I was going to vote for Romney?) and “you’re just throwing you vote away and letting other Democrats down” (My vote is my own, if other Democrats want to waste their’s on Obama without a fight, then they are letting ME down.)
But it’s this new one that if you are complaining about how Obama hasn’t met your standards for being liberal, then you must be an overeducated, privileged snob, that I find interesting. I think this is *supposed* to be targeting the suckers voters who were enthusiastic Obama supporters in 2008 but are now feeling betrayed by him. It almost feels like the paid Obama campaign troll commenter is saying that Obama’s “accomplishments” were never meant for *you*. They are meant for the poor working class person who lives in a trailer and whose kids are on drugs. (That bit came from nippersdad) Yes, if you live a live of privilege, you don’t really need any help from the Obama administration so qwitcherbitchin. And anyway, Obama is the most pragmatic politician who like any politician is forced to make compromises (I think this is a nested meme, the derivative of which can be calculated using the chain rule).
The Obama campaign is going to be surprised in the fall when it finds out how many of those overprivileged snobs are now living in trailers but you can’t tell people sometimes. They have to learn it the hard way.
Keep your eyes peeled for more of the same and if you’ve found any patterns of your own, share them in the comment threads.
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There are more posts about what John Roberts was thinking floating around. This one is particularly good. Rumor has it that Anthony Kennedy was a pain in the ass and pursued Roberts about his decision down to the very last day. Not surprised, Jeffrey Toobin’s book on the Supreme Court wasn’t flattering to Kennedy. Forget Antonin Scalia, it’s Kennedy who is the real conservative on the court. Sandra Day O’Connor was the only one who could ever get through his thick pompous skull.
So, here’s my worthless 2 cents on Roberts. No one should be fooled that he has a secret bleeding heart. I think Roberts was taking one for the team. He was on the verge of rejecting the ACA but there were political dividends to be had by letting it stand. For one thing, the Republican conservative court couldn’t be blamed for kicking people with pre-existing conditions off of insurance policies. That would look bad in an election year and would also draw too much of voters’ attention to the Supreme Court. So, letting the ACA stand was a neutralizing move. But Roberts also had an opportunity to score one for Republicans and Libertarians by making the ACA into a tax. That’s going to play to the Republican base.
Besides, letting it stand cements the law into place, allowing insurance companies to plunder our bank accounts. So, you know, it’s all good. If Romney is elected, expect him not to change a thing. It’s his plan after all.
So, enough of the speculation over Roberts. It was a political move and in this case, the foolish consistency was only going to get them into trouble. He did it for the cause.
Filed under: General | Tagged: meme, Obama campaign, overprivileged snobs |
The Confluence 
The reverse snob privilege meme seems like it would have a half-life of about a week once people stop and think about whether they consider themselves or Obama to be a greater elitist snob.
So why is the Obama campaign deploying all this stuff now?
On the other hand, I guess portraying Obama as the defender of the working class won’t be much use as the economy goes further in the tank, so they might as well use this one now.
Huh, Obama has done next to nothing for the poor and the working class. He even offered to give away their Social Security and Medicare benefits. Anyone who’s defending him on that basis needs to get a new script.
And John Roberts has never made a decision that hasn’t somehow helped the corporate class. He’s created a precedent that will be used in the future to overturn federal social economic policies that benefit the poor, working and middle class Americans. We’ve entered a very dark age.
RD,
Like the picture, but is it just a coincidence that Obummer looks a bit like Mussolini in the graphic ?
Mussolini, there’s someone you don’t hear about anymore. It’s always, Hitler and Stalin. Wasn’t Mussolini the guy who invented fascism and said something to the effect that the pursuit of happiness had no place in the State?
Hmmm, come to think of it, there is a passing resemblance. The problem is that word has been used to glibly. No one really takes it seriously anymore.
Yes, people tend to think of just the “extremes” so it is always Hitler or Stalin.
S Brennan permalink
August 25, 2009
“…This is looking uncomfortably like Italy under Mussolini”
I had been making something like this observation before Obama showed up on the scene. [Try to remember until 2006 he was a junior member of a state legislative body…outside of some very (powerful/insider/rich) donors…a nobody]
However, since he showed up on the national stage and started striking those staged poses that he does…well, now we have a guy who actually thinks it’s cool to strike Mussolini-like poses. And the likeness is uncanny. It’s the first thing I noticed when a high school classmate who writes a national column told me to look into him prior to his convention speech. That’s why I’ve been using the term “creepy” to describe him. It is unimaginable to me that Americans as a group don’t notice that Obama likes to strike poses that match one the twentieth century’s worst villains*. It really is creepy.
* yes, there were a lot of ‘em.
http://www.ianwelsh.net/road-to-ruin-bernankes-reappointment-is-just-the-status-quo/
Yes, I have noticed that too, though not quite as long as you. I think its because of the narcissism, Mussolini thought he was the embodiment of a new Roman Empire, while Obummer thinks he is the embodiment of a new American Imperium which gives a new, lethal meaning to phrase “droning on”.
So here’s the upcoming election: Shit Sandwich A or Shit Sandwich B-yum, yum.
It is true that one of the Brand Name candidates will win the election.
But we can also vote for one of several third party wannabe candidates. If significant numbers of people vote for one or more of them, those people will try to find eachother after the election and begin evolving a lasting community-of-rejection at the very least from there.
Or if one thinks one of the shit sandwhiches may in fact be the More Effective shit sandwhich, one may well vote for the Less Effective shit sandwhich to be more sure of scraping the More Effective shit sandwhich out of office.
Funny about the “privileged” meme. I recall obots bragging of being young and affluent and dissing us as poor and old. As for Roberts, I am glad you dropped the empathy explanation. He was always a tool – it’s why he was put there.
Another blogger I steadily read named Ran Prieur described the basic root-problem with B O Romneycare so well I will cutpaste the whole thing here . . . and hope that is not too discourteous.
“July 4. A few people have asked for my thoughts on Obamacare. I think it will be better than the old system for most people, but that it is worse than doing nothing. How can this be? It’s like you’re in a tall building that’s on fire, and you climb higher. You’re farther from the flames, but now it’s even more difficult to get out.
The flames are the American private insurance system. Some liberals are trying to make Obamacare sound better by saying that now, like Europe and Canada, we have “universal insurance”. Europe and Canada have no such thing — they have universal coverage. In the absence of a publicly funded system, with the fear of catastrophic bills, insurance is a business that steps in to profit from spreading costs.
I think the best health care system would be one at either extreme. At the libertarian extreme, everyone pays out of pocket, providers have to set costs and services so that ordinary people can pay, and competition and consumer awareness keep prices low. You might see an ad for Joe’s Clinic where you can get your appendix out for only $299. But the very poor don’t even have that much money. As in any libertarian system, they’re screwed.
At the socialist extreme, nobody even gets a bill. The government pays for everything and funds it through progressive taxation, in which money is taken from people who would actually be better off with less money. Everyone wins — except that there’s no incentive for anyone to keep costs low, so only rich nations can afford it.
In America we have the worst of both worlds: insurance insulates consumers from the market, allowing costs to explode, but ultimately consumers still have to pay. Most Americans who declare bankruptcy from medical costs had insurance that just wasn’t good enough. Obamacare does nothing to change this. We still can’t afford to buy insurance that covers 100% of everything, and now we are required to pay insurance premiums much higher than taxes paid by working class Canadians, while still risking financial ruin.
The insurance mandate is the most regressive kind of tax: a head tax. For the same insurance plan, Bill Gates pays the same as someone who’s just barely not poor enough for Medicaid. On top of that, the money is not even paid to the government, but to private interests that are using the government to suck the last of the money from the middle class.
The good news is, there is an alternate tax that’s less regressive. This is the “penalty” that the Supreme Court declared is only constitutional if construed as a tax. The tax for not having insurance is capped at 2.5% of income. So if your income is $20,000 a year, that’s only $500 a year, which is less than the healthiest 20 year old would pay for the most bare-bones catastrophic plan.
I’m not going to advise anyone to go without insurance, because it’s a personal choice that depends on how much risk you’re willing to take. But a person of above average health, and below average income, is likely to spend less paying the penalty and paying cash for medical costs, than they would spend on insurance premiums and stuff that insurance still doesn’t cover. Likely… but not certain. Do you feel not-unlucky?