Kate Middleton and Mitt Romney have learned the lesson thatwhat occurs at a French villa or a party with rich folk should be assumed to beno more private than a tweet. But while the Duchess of Cambridge commandedsympathy, Romney found himself on the defensive. This is in part because theleaked tape of the Republican presidential candidate speaking to wealthy donorshad a feel of authenticity. There was a fluency that sometimes eludes Romneywhen he is speaking in public.
The reaction from much of the United States and the world wasshock: shock at the claim that 47 percent of voters are “dependent upongovernment,” thinking themselves “victims” who are “entitled to health care, tofood, to housing, to you name it”; and shock that a candidate would say thisand expect to win. “ What some of the commentary ignored, particularly in aEurope used to welfare states, was that Romney was articulating a theory thattaps into strong, subterranean currents of resentment swirling beneath theUnited States today. What Romney seemed to be channeling was the resentments ofthe much larger class far below him “ but just above the 47 percent.
In Romney’s words, given at a private fund-raiser in BocaRaton, Florida, were three interconnected claims about modern American lifethat one hears very rarely from the rich but all the time from the just-aboves. The first is that the paramount division inAmerican life is not race, not class, not geography; that it is, instead, theline between the energetic and lazy “ between makers and takers. The second isthat these are fixed identities, not fleeting situations: that takers are acertain kind of person, with their own culture and values, and makers anothervariety. The third is that the United States has been drifting into a perversenew condition in which it will, before long, be better to be born a taker thana maker.
It seems borrowed from the grievances of folks lessfortunate than Romney, who enjoy some fortune but whose privilege is precariousenough that they feel it slipping away. And they feel so in part (in their ownassessment) because of government help to the disadvantaged: the contracts setaside for minorities; the affirmative action that works against theircollege-bound children; the taxes they pay while others seem to them to enjoyunemployment and its checks. Romney is offering himself to the fearful as asavior who can spare it the bitter fate of becoming tomorrow’s underdogs.
