The Great Derangement - Matt Taibbi [123]
“The thing, the thing, the thing about medicine from Canada is, it’s okay, but the American guv’ment can’t be responsible for it,” he said. “If something goes wrong with it, you’ve got to go to Canada to fight it out. You can’t do it over here, you know.”
Made sense. But what about the governor?
“I don’t think Canada will do anything to poison the American, though,” he answered. “Because they need the business.”
True again.
And what did he think of the slogan “The Strength for America’s Future”? What did he think that meant?
“That just means about the Space Center, you know. When we have the Space Center, it makes the United States a superpower, and—”
“Uh,” I said, trying to follow him.
“And that just means that with the benefits, we don’t need to have the draft anymore.”
I nodded. “That’s what that slogan means to you, that we don’t need to have a draft anymore?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“Okay, great, thanks a lot,” I said, giving him my card. He took it and walked away, cradling the card in his hand.
A FEW MINUTES LATER I broke down and interviewed some ostensibly mentally healthy Republicans. One couple was very pleased with Romney’s performance. Hubby was almost beaming.
“I had been considering Giuliani,” he said, “but now I have to say that I’m going with Romney.”
“Yes, me too,” said Wife.
I wrote that down. “I see,” I said. “And what is it about Romney that is different from Giuliani?”
Hubby’s smile vanished.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“He just is,” added Wife.
“He talks good,” chimed in Hubby.
“Okay,” I said, writing. “‘Talks good,’ got it. Thanks a lot, folks.”
They stood there, still staring at me.
“Okay,” I said, repeating myself. “Thanks a lot!” Dismissed!
Slowly, they walked away.
THE KIND OF PEOPLE who come out to support a carefully scripted corporate frontman like Mitt Romney or even Hillary Clinton are either outright cynics—and I’ve met some of those, grinning upper-class folk who see through the candidates’ spiels, but vote for them anyway because they want their taxes slashed or less regulation of their Wall Street businesses—or actual believers in the dreck the candidates are selling. And if they believe, it’s usually because they tune in to political shows on TV or radio and believe everything they hear, right down to the commercials. So when election season comes around, they choose their candidates on the basis of what appears to be an almost completely random neurological process—all of those mainstream media opinions bounce around in their heads for a while, and then when the merry-go-round stops on Election Day, they look to see which ones stuck and vote accordingly. When your voter-on-the-street is a John Originally from New York, you get a vivid picture of that Random Opinion Generator at work. But sometimes it’s just as obvious with your run-of-the-mill, ostensibly freethinking Republican or Democrat. Why do you like this candidate? I just do. No, seriously, why? Uh, I don’t know. Because he’s tough on terrorism? And he’s for “change”! And so on.
Mitt Romney is your prototypical full-of-shit presidential candidate. He represents nothing so much as the system itself, which builds up politicians who look the part, frown with import at the appropriate cues, heave with concern about Our Children (“There are twenty-nine thousand registered sex offenders on MySpace!” Romney crowed at today’s event), and have a stern word or two or ten for the Terrorists who want to wreck Our Way of Life, whatever the hell that is.
This system used to work just fine. The Republicans were once masters at appropriating public unhappiness for their own ends, telling people who’d been put out of jobs by the exported manufacturing economy that their lives now sucked not because they were unemployed, but because Sean Penn was a little communist weasel who didn’t believe in God besides. And because people now went mostly to movies instead of union meetings, they ate it up. The image of the spoiled, traitorous rich