We’ve heard a lot in recent days from assorted manosphere dudes about how the “slut vote” – and the endless hunger of our nation’s “sluts” for free contraception – helped to bring about a humiliating end to Romney’s presidential hopes. The sluts went for Obama, we heard, because he promised them (and women in general) what they supposedly want most: “free stuff without ever having to work.”
Minus the word “slut,” this was the basic argument we’ve heard over the past week from a lot of right-wingers as well, including such big names as Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly, who’ve been loudly complaining that Obama won over women – and minorities – by promising to give them “stuff.”
Well, today, a new voice joined this chorus: Mitt Romney himself. In a conference call today with some of his big donors – no doubt a fairly dispirited bunch – Romney offered this explanation for his defeat:
The Obama campaign was following the old playbook of giving a lot of stuff to groups that they hoped they could get to vote for them and be motivated to go out to the polls, specifically the African American community, the Hispanic community and young people. … In each case they were very generous in what they gave to those groups.
Never mind, as the Los Angeles Times points out, that Romney lost in some key states that have a minimal minority population, or that Romney’s promised tax cuts could be considered gigantic gifts to the rich.
While Romney talked less about gender than he did about race and enthnicity, he did single out one group that he said Obama had been especially generous to: young women. And you all know the easiest way to bribe a young female voter. As Romney put it:
Free contraceptives were very big with young, college-aged women.
Apparently the government has been shipping out birth control pills along with those Obama Phones.
What exactly did Obama give Mormons that made them vote for Romney at a lower rate than they voted for McCain?
A severe headache and nausea, perhaps?
Whoops, I read that back to front – I was thinking of Romney giving ’em headache and nausea.
::hides under desk covered in confusion::
IT’S NOT FUCKING FREE GOD DAMMIT.
Sorry, big pet peeve of mine. “No co-pay” does not mean free. It means that IF YOU HAVE INSURANCE, they don’t charge a co-pay. But guess what? I’M STILL FUCKING PAYING FOR INSURANCE.
And btw, that provision affects ALL women* including the married ones in their 40s who don’t want to risk getting pregnant. So fuck him again for the implication that only slutty young coeds gave a damn about this. What an asshole.
Yeah, that was one of the things I was laughing at (in an eye-rolling way) when I read this. I mean, we know sleazeballwillfullyignorant specimens like Limbaugh come out with this crap, but for some reason I’d have thought that Mr Genius Big Businessman Presidential Candidate would have been a tad better informed.
Silly me.
So for a while I thought that a lot of this kind of response was coming from fringe groups, but at this point I can’t help but laugh at what the Republican party has become. It really is a joke at this point, not much else can really be said.
True, aworldanonymous. This is purely anecdotal and not anything close to actual statistics at all, but I noticed a while ago that I don’t know any Romney supporters or have actually found one. Sure, I know people who voted for Romney, but not really supporters of him. They just seemed to be Obama detractors. Hell, a lot of them hated Romney while he was in the primaries.
Not voting for who you don’t want doesn’t get you what you want.
They just can’t see us as people, can they?
So reduced cost for things like birth control, access to government programs like food stamps and low income healthcare are considered “entitlements” but tax loopholes letting billionaires horde more wealth aren’t
via Shakesville:
http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/14/opinion/bennett-gop-election/
money quote:
Oh, the depths that Democrats will sink to! Coming right out and saying facts! That are true! Dastardly, I tells ya!
Can the Republicans party be relevant in any way to non-white, non-rich, non-male citizens if this kind of chatter continues? No. Limbaugh is the party now. They either have to publically denounce this bullshit or just admit that they have no intention of regarding minorities and women as people. Where else are they going to go? After this year, how could they possibly gain any social momentum? They’ve got a lot rich assholes on their side, but people really dislike Donald Trump. There are still people willing to vote against their own interests, but it’s a brainwash…republicans using populism to keep their numbers up. Seriously, if they don’t dump the tea party, they shouldn’t be surprised if they continue to grow mold.
To be fair, the mainstream Democrat party is so far right itself that the Republicans had to go EXTREMELY right to differentiate themselves. It would have been cool if they’d gone left instead, but no. In that political compass thing in the other thread, I was very struck by how close together Romney and Obama’s dots were. And somehow conservative pundits get away with calling Obama a leftist. He’s not, and never has been. He’s centre-right.
Hey, where’s the line for the free stuff? I keep hearing Obama is going to give us free stuff. I’ve been waiting for over 4 years for it and growing tired.
Leaving aside race for the moment, the age group that most votes Republican is 50+. Seventy-year-olds were born in 1942, sixty-year-olds in 1952, and fifty-year-olds in 1962. These are the very people who benefited and are still benefiting from government programs like Social Security, the FHA, and breakthroughs like hormonal birth control. Now they’re all, “Screw you, we got ours.”
Although, to be fair, plenty of older people didn’t vote for Romney because they were afraid of Social Security cuts. Still, I hear people this age all the time complain that the world “isn’t the same as it was, everyone just cares about themselves” when this is the world that they created,
This is humorous:
Tea party supporters are angry at the GOP for embracing as its presidential nominee a “moderate” like Romney.
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/nov/11/nation/la-na-tea-party-20121111
@Unimaginative, comparing Obama’s record with Nixon’s is, well, interesting. Of course, during Nixon’s term there were actual movements making demands in the streets so it was much less about the individuals/parties in office than it was about the context… [cloudiah takes off far left hat]
Hey, now that I’m done with my thesis, there’s a new post on my blog. Imagine that.
Obama Promising women he will ensure provision of preventative healthcare = Bribery.
Romney promising rich white dudes money if he gets elected = not bribery???
Obama gave us the ability to buy health insurance and Romney gave us outsourced jobs and shuttered businesses.
It really wasn’t that tough a call for most peeps, but surely the “let the women die” legislation to the tune of over 900 bills had an influence on some of us.
Some citizens take a dim view of civil rights being stripped from other citizens.
The bottom line is that the Dems coalition was larger than the GOP non coalition.
Both Romney and Ryan have made a point of blowing the racist dog whistle since they lost. They are not what anyone would call gracious in defeat.
I think blowing up the economy and Citizens United as well as an extraordinary effort to suppress the vote of the 47% just might have had a little something to do with it as well.
How is voting in our own best interests some kind of scandal?
THAT’S HOW DEMOCRACY WORKS.
The weirdest thing reps don’t get is that Obama is pretty right-wing in many ways when looked at from where I am from. He would be out of his league in a Dutch leftist party. That applies to a good part of Europe.
Why does most of the EU have higher HDI than the US if we are so awfully bad at running our countries? Why does the Netherlands beat US on about every measure of development? And the rest of Europe too.
Sorry i may be a bit unclear, currently enjoying the “socialist” nonprofit healthcare on a hospital bed in a painkiller drip. I finally got around to read about Obamacare recently and I just can’t understand the fuss. It’s a bit like the Dutch system in ways but only not as good. Why do reps still try to repeal it? If they truly want everyone to have access to the best care as they claim, they’re idiots or lying. Which they obviously are, but why are they so surprised when people figure it out?
I know one. He was a supporter because of bidness and he likes bidness but once agreed with me that it is better to have unionization to address bad business owners not treating workers well since he benefits from an employer who does treat his workers well. Okay except when I am telling his boss to work him like an ox because I personally find that funny and he is making around $150,000 a year so what the fuck is he whining about?
He was pretty PO’d with me yesterday because of his guy’s loss and thought I was going to mock him hard for it.
I know of one local columnist who has been complaining one district voted for their best interests and that is why we have a bad state Senate president. We have told her to shut up and stop demanding that Democrats fix the problems with the Republicans.
Now they have discovered the secret to getting votes, Romney’s party will be handing out condoms at all future elections?
Republicans live in their own reality. This is a reality where no one ever tells the truth (which is why they can believe that the UN is about to force us all into cities to live with “those people” because the truth is the proof that it is going to happen.) And until now, the people peddling this stuff never faced any negative consequences so that is why they are so surprised people are “no, we actually do accept reality so yeah.”
Plus the fact is, when the Dems do create government programs, they tend to do it right from the get go (and need only tweaking here and there over the years) and those programs become enormously popular keeping the Dems in power. They hate that because they want power. They never want to properly use that power but they do want it. So for them, the idea that the Democratic President who had the gall to be elected in the first place must not have anything pass. Because then he would win re-election and they would keep being out of power that they never really want to use in the first place.
Remember: women like to “trap” men by having babies, and the best way to achieve this is free birth control for women.
Wait, that almost… makes no sense. It’s like… you’re just looking for an excuse to hate women.