I spent three hours last night watching the Republican National Convention. Given that I already know whom I’m going to vote for in the general election and given that we all know modern “nominating” conventions are just marathons of pandering and self-congratulation (on the incumbent's part) or blame-laying (on the challenger's), it’s fair to ask why I would put myself through it. It’s painful no matter what your affiliation.
But I watch anyway. I want to know whom I’m voting against, or (more importantly perhaps) who will be taking office if my guy loses. And I also think that making an effort to understand views that conflict with my own is incumbent upon me as a voter.
I was especially interested in hearing from Ann Romney. She has taken a beating for not working outside the home, for having too much money, for having a dressage horse. I don’t think that’s particularly fair. I’m not going to engage in Mommy War crapola about whether or not it’s work to take care of kids. Women should not be forced to defend their choices or their incomes. Ann Romney has had breast cancer. She has MS. She has raised five kids and has been married 46 years. She has suffered and triumphed and done her best, so let’s lay off on that stuff.
And yet, I wanted to scream during most of her speech last night.
She began with what sounded like an unscripted and genuine acknowledgement that a dangerous storm was brewing, and she praised the first responders who were at the ready. Wouldn’t those first responders be police and firefighters? Scott Walker (the guy who *just* got off the stage) has referred to the cost of paying their salaries as a virus. But thanks to them for being willing to put themselves in harm’s way without pensions or bargaining rights, I guess.
It took me awhile to figure out where she was going with her “love” meme, but soon she hit her stride by talking about Motherhood. Because everyone knows “that it’s the MOMS of this nation who hold this country together.” Then she talked about wives a lot and trotted out all kinds of anecdotes about different parents and their concerns, culminating in a rousing cheer, “I love you women!” And that’s when I started shouting at the TV. It incenses me when womanhood is reduced to maternity and marital status. But what’s spooky about Ann Romney is that she is utterly sincere. Her view of the women she “loves” is just that narrow. I believe she empathizes with the stories she has heard about struggling families. I even believe she has struggled. But her view of the world -- and modern womanhood in particular -- is chillingly limited, and is echoed profoundly in her party’s rhetoric. Yet she doesn’t even hear what she’s saying.
Take, for example, her empathy with the (married) couple who “would like to have another child, but wonder how they’ll afford it.” But Ann! How will this couple prevent having another child they can’t afford unless they use birth control? And how will they pay for birth control if they don’t have insurance? Or if they have insurance, what if their insurance doesn’t cover it, because they work for an organization that prohibits coverage of birth control? And if they forgo birth control and have a child anyway (because choosing to end the pregnancy is also illegal) how will they support the child? Or pay for his/her education? Will they “shop around” for a bargain on tuition, as her husband suggests?
In acknowledging the blessings that her husband’s success has afforded her family, “good education” was repeated twice. She praised her husband for founding a program in Massachusetts that gives full tuition to the top 25% of high school graduates. What she did not mention is that these scholarships come in the form of state supported undergraduate tuition waivers. Clearly, her husband’s actions show that the government has a role in offering a boost up the ladder. If those students then go on to be small business owners or entrepreneurs, wouldn’t it be safe to say that they didn’t build that? When President Obama said, to the delight of Republicans everywhere, the infamous “You didn’t build that,” he was actually referring to exactly this sort of thing. Anyone who has read the phrase in context knows it. It’s just too simple to play the sound bite and ignore the reality that many successful people get where they are with help from government.
Ann Romney appears to empathize with people who face hard decisions, but the fact is she shows absolutely no awareness that the choices made by people who do not have what she has been privileged to have: enough money, enough insurance, and yes, enough freedom, are limited.
Yes, I said the F word. The party that preaches freedom -- from taxation, from regulation, from paying for infrastructure and education and safety nets that help people to build something from nothing but sweat and determination -- actually has no idea how limited the freedoms of many Americans already are. And Ann Romney, as elegant and eloquent and empathetic as she is, has no visceral understanding of this, either.
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Ann Romney May Love Me, but I don't Love Her
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