Corporations are people too, my friends. Mitt Romney
Anybody remember that old line from the Mittster? I sure as hell do. It was pundit gold, and along with his imbecilic “47%” comment from a closed fund raiser, sealed Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign as being conducted by a hopelessly out of touch 1%er with no regard for the rest of us.
I don’t have to remember that moment with crystal clarity, because I just saw a tape replay of it yesterday. Mitt Romney died on that particular hill that day, and he fought all the way to the end, continuing to try to explain why corporations were actually people, even while he was being jeered off of the stage. And when I saw that replay, and Romney’s passionate, logical, fervid defense of his statement, while boo’s cascaded down around him, it struck me.
Mitt Romney was dead serious when he said that corporations were people too. And in his mind he was right. Because, as Romney was trying so desperately to explain to the scoffing crowd, when you think about it, all of the benefits that actually accrue to a corporation are ultimately passed down the line to living, breathing human beings. Basically those “little people” make the corporation a viable, living, breathing organism. And nothing that George Orwell put into 1984 even comes close in the chill of its implication.
Long before Mitt Romney was a presidential candidate, and long before he was the Governor of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, Romney was a businessman, a venture capitalist. Or, considering the business practices of his Bain Capital, he was more accurately a vulture capitalist. He made his money by taking what belonged to others, mainly the failing companies he bought, and selling it off to keep the money for himself, nothing went back to the people who built the original company in the first place, except pink slips. And he was good enough at it to become one of the top-tenth-of-one-percent himself. The man knows of what he speaks.
When Romney told us that corporations were people too, he wasn’t just committing a gaffe, he was telling us the ruling philosophy of the Republican party. How do we know this? Because, while the Democrats love to tout themselves as the party of the “working man,” the GOP has more and more steadily become over the years the “business friendly” party. The GOP itself no longer even bothers trying to deny that it a wholly owned subsidiary of corporate America, mainly because nobody would believe them. And Mitt Romney’s ill advised statement is exactly how corporate America thinks.
This explains so much about Donald Trump, it’s not even funny. In Donald Trump, the oligarchs of corporate America have their dream president. Donald Trump is the real life political equivalent of Governor William J. LePetomain, Mel Brooks zany character from Blazing Saddles, who famously stumbled out from behind a curtain in his office, his pants around his ankles, because his Attorney General, Hedley Lamar, had interrupted him fondling his secretary back there. If you can’t see that for yourself, there’s nothing that I can say that would convince you.
Trump is the perfect ventriloquist dummy for corporate America in the White House for two reasons. First of all, like LePetomain, he is a totally compliant idiot. Just like in the movie, you stick a piece of paper under his nose, and he signs it. Work, work, work, that’s all I do all day. Hello boys! I missed you! Trump’s tax law is a perfect example. In the original bill, there were several small kitty treats thrown in there to make the bill more visually palatable to the rest of us non 1% slobs, but almost all of them were yanked before passage, to increase the take for corporate American and the other rich shitpokes.
The second reason that Trump is such a useful shill for corporate America is that he is a total moron about business and finance. Trump is an abject failure at business, not only indicated by his multiple bankruptcies, but also by his own bragging admission of being the “king of debt.” Trump himself produces nearly nothing, he is nothing more than a name to be slapped on the sides of buildings. And what he does own is mortgaged to the hilt. If the state of New York ever does prosecute Trump under their version of the RICO statutes, and wins, by the time they’re finished selling every asset he “owns” to pay the fines and restitution, Trump won’t have enough money left over to buy a lousy tin cup for his street corner vigil.
Which is what is so damn useful for corporate America. Being a business ignoramus, Trump is susceptible, either directly from corporate moguls, who know exactly how to play their mark, conning him into thinking they’re treating him as their equal, and giving him sage advice, or through words whispered in his ear by their lock-stock-and-barrel owned Senators and House members. As they say in the Bible, Thy will be done. Trump’s stupid, senseless trade war with China is a perfect example. Big agra is raking in money hand over fist from Trump’s subsidies, without having to hassle with growing stuff, and they will always find ways to sell off their excess stock. Meanwhile, more small farms will shortly go belly up, allowing big Agra to snap them up. And big business is using Trump’s tariffs as a way to jack up the prices on their own products, as well as selling more of their own products domestically, due to the increased rices of the tariffed imports.
This may also explain the extreme dearth of political willpower among GOP incumbents to criticize Trump. 40 of them lost their jobs last November, and more will likely lose their jobs in 2020. Trump is killing them, and yet they remain as silent as the tomb. But their corporate overlords are just as happy as pigs in a wallow with the way things are going under Trump, and the word filters down to their tamed tabbies that they had better toe the line, then so be it. Facing the wrath of Trump’s drooling idiots is bad enough by itself, but facing them without the contributions of their corporate lords and masters makes survival impossible.
Ain’t life a kick in the ass? You take what was once nothing more than an amusing anecdote from a political candidate, uttered at an inopportune moment. Nothing to it. But then, you look at it again seven years later, with all of the wisdom of time passed, and the knowledge of what has come since, and suddenly it seems to make a whole lot more sense. And another thing. It ain’t so goddamned funny anymore. This has to be a part of the Democrats economic argument in 2020. True, four more years of Trump may well wreck the social fabric of this country beyond repair. But four more years of Trump may well usher in a permanent corporate oligarchy that will be impossible to dismantle after he’s gone, if it isn’t already too late.
I’ve said before I wish Mel Brookes had enough left in him to write and produce an updated version of Blazing Saddles that would give “Gov.” a bigger role and skewer Trump. I’d be willing to bet he’d like to do it. Or maybe a combination of Blazing Saddles and The Producers. There was a time when Brooke’s genius unleashed would have turned Trump into a laughingstock even amongst the MAGA crowd. Oh well.
One item you mentioned is one I think our candidates are missing out on exploiting and that is the impact of the trade war on farmers. We’ve seen a version of this movie before in the 70s & 80s. Agricultural policy before Reagan was geared towards U.S. farmers “feeding the world” and a LOT of old school traditional family farms invested heavily to ramp up their crop production. Farm machinery is damned expensive, and even then a large combine would top six figures. Well, Reagan got into office and changed things, including turning the FmHA into a collection agency and putting family farm after family farm out of business when foreign policy shifted away from making up for agricultural shortfalls in the USSR and elsewhere. Reagan created a problem that created stress on farmers and then used an agency of his own administration to start foreclosing on anyone who fell the tiniest behind in loan payments.
Not so coincidentally that’s when modern agribusiness turned into the behemoth we know today.
Finding a way to explain THAT in the farm belt in a way that will make old-timers say WTF? to themselves and then others might kick loose a lot of votes. China’s recent move to stop ALL agricultural products from the U.S. is the coup de grace to the largest market on the face of the earth. Once again the family farms that are left have worked like hell to take advantage of a government policy of providing food to the world, and once again a ruthless, corporate owned administration that doesn’t give a flying fuck about the average family farmer has changed the rules and is shoving their tractors up their asses – sideways. The smarter ones have already started making noises about realizing the China market they worked so hard to open up and supply is probably gone for at least their lifetimes. As they talk in their communities more people will come to that realization. Alas, that won’t drive them away from Trump and the GOP. What might do the trick however is to remind them of what happened roughly forty years ago, and asking them how long they can hold out even with taxpayers bailing them out in the short term before they will lose their farms to a corporation.
Oh, I’ll bet he could find quite the hilarious take on the decadence of Trump’s modern day Rome for a sequel to Jistory of the World Part I…lol
The oligarchy might have stood a chance if it wasn’t such a kakistocracy.
Thank god they’ve been so inept.
If it wasn’t written down, I’d never remember a thing Mitt Romney said. The second he stops talking is the second my memory erases everything he said.
And sorry but I don’t buy your take on Trump being useful, Murf. Yes, the plan was what you said but Trump’s unique blend of arrogance and ignorance has made plenty of businesses OUTSIDE OF Big Ag lose lots of money. And that’s before you get into his bad habit of taking money that isn’t his for purposes other than what he promised…which Trump does to EVERYBODY, CEOs included.
There we simply respectfully disagree Bareshark…Small businesses may be tanking, but THEY aren’t likely to be major GOP donors…And mid size businesses that run into trouble are soft targets for vulture capitalists like Bain Capital…The uber rich and corporate America got their ta cuts and breaks, and the stock market is still allowing the trans nationals to pillage freely of the national treasure…The top 1/10 of 1% didm’t get there by gicing a shit bout anybody else, and they finally have a president who doesn’t even try to fake giving a shit either…Case in point…Shelly Adelson…How many other GOP candidates did Adelson support before Trump? But once he went in, he went A:: in, and is so to this day…He wouldn’t do that if Trmp was bad for HIS business…
Adelson is a highly visible example of the global oligarchical class–all 120 of them–getting everything they’ve ever wanted from the American taxpayers, including unlimited access to power. 2020 may be our last chance to fight the new feudalism to ensure we don’t find ourselves living in virtual serfdom. This ain’t our first rodeo: the Presidency has been bought by the ruling class before (SEE: McKinley, Taft, et als) with predictably terrible results for labor, farmers, and small business owners.