Mitt Romney, speaking to a group of wealthy donors at the mansion of hedge fund manager Marc Leder on May 17, 2012.

"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president [Obama] no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what ...These are people who pay no income tax, so our message of low taxes does not connect.  My job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

The illness we now behold did not begin in 2016, but was nurtured within a political party that has been growing sicker and sicker for a long time, actually since long before Mitt ran for president.  Poor Mitt!

Where do we begin?  First, the 47% number.  According to the New York Times it was more or less true at the time Mitt said it that 47% of American households paid no federal income tax.  But Mitt's statements that this same 47% believe they are victims, and will vote for Obama no matter what, well, this might have been Mitt living in an imaginary world he created to ease his conscience, and/or to explain to his donors why he wasn't doing so well in the polls.  Research inspired by Mitt's remarks showed that the approximately 47% of households who paid no federal income tax in 2011 were not by any means exclusively and perhaps not even mostly Democratic households; nor had they refused to "take responsibility and care for their lives."

According to the Tax Foundation, in 2008 nine of the top 10 states for federal tax filers with no federal income tax liability were "red" states:  Of these nine states: Idaho,Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida and South Carolina, Mitt in 2012 carried all but Florida. So, many of those constituting Mitt's infamous 47% were Republicans and voted for Mitt on November 6, 2012.

In reality federal tax filers with no federal income tax liability mostly fall into two main groups: the working poor, and the elderly.  The working poor constitute 60% of those Americans with no federal income tax liability while the retired elderly make up another 22%.  Only about 8% of American households pay no federal taxes at all, mostly because they are very poor.

Further, most of those without federal income tax liability pay other taxes, sometimes a lot of other taxes, as Mitt should well know, since he is from the party that incessantly complains about taxes.

Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, responding to a comment from Senator Sherrod Brown during a tax debate in the Senate, November 30, 2017:

"The reason CHIP (Children's Health Insurance Program) is having trouble is because we don’t have money anymore.  We just add more and more spending and more and more spending, and you can look at the rest of the bill for the more and more spending. I happen to think CHIP has done a terrific job for people who really needed the help. I have taken that position around here my whole Senate service. I believe in helping those who cannot help themselves but would if they could. I have a rough time wanting to spend billions and billions and trillions of dollars to help people who won’t help themselves, won’t lift a finger and expect the federal government to do everything.  Unfortunately, the liberal philosophy has created millions of people that way, who believe everything they are or ever hope to be depends on the federal government rather than the opportunities that this great country grants them."

To defend his position on CHIP Orrin had to disparage and blame someone else.  Whom?  Imaginary legions of shiftless Americans who won't lift a finger to help themselves. So many of them that the government is spending billions and billions and even trillions just to keep them alive.  And of course if these Americans won't take care of themselves, won't even pay their own way, then whom do they expect to do it?  Why, the worthy and the wealthy of course!  And stout-hearted Orrin must protect the wealthy from the indolent masses, for without the wealthy this country is lost!

Maybe Orrin, like Mitt, gets his derogatory ideas about Americans more from his self-comforting prejudices than from empirical studies.  Or if this is not the case, and Orrin is a political scientist, I would like to see the reports he reads that support a finding that there are millions of able Americans "who won't lift a finger and expect the government to do everything."  No, Orrin is probably feeling a bit caught out, embarrassed by the attention drawn by the latest professional Republican assault (also known as Republican tax reform) on ordinary Americans, and Orrin's reflex is to protect himself by going on the offensive with self-righteous indignation.

Later in the Senate debate, Orrin was stung by Senator Sherrod Brown's comments about the true nature of Republican tax reform.  Senator Brown said, "I just think, it would be nice, just tonight, before we go home, to just acknowledge, well, this tax cut really is not for the middle class, it's for the rich."

That set off Orrin Hatch, the honorable senior senator from Utah.  So angry that he couldn't bring the gavel down flush on the sounding block, but struck it a glancing blow.  Orrin was livid in reply.  "Listen I have honored you by allowing you to spout off here, and what you’ve said is not right. I come from the lower middle class originally. We didn’t have anything, so don’t spew that stuff on me. I get a little tired of crap."

Poor Orrin!  It used to be that professional Republicans could give their wealthy masters a big tax cut without causing so much fuss.  But now, it's just not fun anymore--people are starting to pay attention!

Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, speaking last week to the Des Moines Register:

"I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies."

No, you have not entered the Bizarro World, yet.  But I'm afraid that Charles Grassley has gone there to live, along with Mitt Romney, Orrin Hatch and essentially every Republican member of Congress, even the women.  To evade the psychological punishment concomitant to their unrelentingly hostile engagement with the truth, professional Republicans have had to escape to the Bizarro World en masse, where, in case you didn't know, everything is bizarrely backwards from planet Earth .  So, in Charles Grassley's Bizzaro World, the only reason why a person would not accumulate a large estate is that instead of investing they have blown all their money on, for example, booze, women or the movies.  And shame on them for not having enough of the moral quality of self-control to stay away from, for example, booze, women and the movies.  For if they had this moral quality, they could save--regardless of their income and prior financial responsibilities--and eventually become wealthy investors, and at the end of life bequeath a very large estate.  So it is important and only right, says Charles Grassley, that we not punish anyone for having the moral fiber required to bequeath a very large estate.

A few days after Grassley made his comment about spendthrift American wastrels and immediately endured criticism for it, he explained that he had been "misinterpreted".  He had not meant to impugn the morality of ordinary Americans who do not accumulate large estates.  He had only meant to say that the government should not punish investment, and that the estate tax punishes investment.  Why then didn't Chuck Grassley just say that (as dubious as it is) in the first place--instead of fallaciously badmouthing so many hard-working Americans--many of them Republican voters and his constituents?

It has something to do with Grassley and the other professional Republican minions of the super-wealthy feeling compelled to articulate a rationale for what they are doing.  They cannot just come out and explain that professional Republicans have been purchased by plutocrats who require them to nakedly assault the middle and lower classes.  Some of them, perhaps including Orrin Hatch, are trying to hide that truth from themselves anyway, and could not articulate that even if they had to.  But in general, servile professional Republicans must articulate a justification for what they are doing, and one thing that in their minds might justify what they are doing is the alleged lower moral quality of ordinary Americans compared to Americans in the investor class, the wealthy, and the plutocrats.  Mitt, Orrin and Chuck are saying to ordinary Americans, "You're not worthy!!  Your own moral failings have got you where you are, and it would be immoral to help you."

In the past such public badmouthing of the sovereign people of the United States was relatively rare, and for good reason: it might not be a good tactic to insult those whose votes you are seeking.  Many hard-working Americans haven't yet noticed that professional Republicans are insulting them as a means to justify and distract from their own debased and servile relationship to the plutocracy.  But this trend toward making false derogatory claims about the American people is being driven by the pressure the plutocracy is applying to all-too-human professional Republicans to do the wrong thing, and, as a manifestation of an historical power struggle, this trend is likely to continue.

Sadly, it follows that when an ascendant plutocracy attacks a weakened democracy, this is reflected in the public words of certain of the people's elected representatives, paid to lick the boots of the plutocracy.  As our democracy continues to take a beating, the pressure on professional Republicans to lie about ordinary Americans is only going to increase, and as it does we will probably see professional Republicans badmouthing the sovereign more and more.  It seems inevitable that Americans--Republican and Democrat--despite countervailing propaganda, will more and more begin to notice and understand what professional Republicans are saying about them.   What then?

­