I was profoundly struck by something Mitt Romney said recently during a fundraiser at a millionaire's house. No, not because Mitt Romney once again proved he's a delusional and narcissist who believes he's a Master of the Universe (although that was part of it). But because of something else.
Here's what Romney said, as per the diary on Daily Kos:
What a welcome, what a place this is. My goodness. Who would have imagined pizza could build this, you know that? This is really something. Don’t you love this country? What a home this is, what grounds these are, the pool, the golf course. You know if a Democrat were here he’d look around and say no one should live like this, you know? Republicans come here and say everyone should live like this, all right. This is a real tribute to America, to entrepreneurship.
The drubbing Romney took was appropriate for his usual arrogance, couched in the same "by his bootstraps" Horatio Alger nonsense the American right has sold like snake oil to the masses for generations.
But there was something else to the language that struck me.
It's an angle that no one's really talked about.
It is the language of the American lottery.
We are all familiar with the Lottery as it's sold to us from billboards, bus stops, and T.V. commercials. The mottoes are second nature:
Hey, you never know!
A dollar and a dream!
It only takes an instant!
The American Lottery is increasingly presented as the American Dream. Yet it is an American dream devoid of any of the original notions of hard work, sacrifice, dedication, and determination.
The lottery is the American dream as a fraud.
Why is this so important to the right wing framework? Because the right wing is a fraud. Theirs is a party made up by criminals, shysters, hucksters and con men. Theirs is a party in which wealth is stolen on high tech gaming boards on Wall Street that are gussied up casinos.
A fraud like Mitt Romney stole his wealth by squeezing large corporations and dumping the losses on the American tax payer, while cashing out in the process.
In other words, a fraud like Mitt Romney is a lottery winner.
In his delusional mind, that is the American dream.
Not the hard work and dedication that people such as Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton produced. They are mocked and derided by the casino-playing hucksters and thieves that make up the American right wing cult movement.
Because they naively play by the rules. They see a larger cause outside of themselves. They feel loyalty to the nation that enriched them.
What it comes down to is that the American right hates the American Dream as it was originally understood.
They believe in a fraudulent American "dream" produced by the "Hey, you never know!" scratch ticket ethos of lottery games and luck-of-the-draw chance taking.
Mitt Romney never produced anything in his life. He gambled in the illegal and savage "casino" created by republican corruption, fraud, and rigging of the system. That was his lottery. That was his "American dream."
Why does Romney keep saying he "won't apologize"? Because he knows, deep down, he's a criminal, a fraud, a scam artist, a huckster, and a man who earned nothing of the massive wealth he stole from other corporations and continues to hide in off-shore bank accounts and accounting trickery.
This is the "American Dream" being sold by the American right wing. It is LOTTERY TICKET dreaming.
* No need for education
* No need for hard work
* No need for dedication and perseverance
* No need to produce an actual product
Vote for Republicans and you too could WIN the American Dream!:
Mitt Romney and the rest of the right wing frauds are selling "A Dollar and a Dream." All their rabid right wing apologists are simply lottery-ticket players. They more the play and don't win, ironically, the more they become invested in the entire systemic fraud.
That's why the modern right has totally unethered from fact-based thinking. You cannot be dedicated to facts and statistics when you play the lottery, or you'd never play (since you're statistically more likely to lose than to win).
This is the framework frauds like Mitt Romney have adopted.
They speak in a language we all know because we see and read ads every day with the same sunny, hopeful, pain-free promises of instant millionairedom. But the conservative movement has deeply tapped into that advertising language to sell the modern "republican dream."
It is a "dream" built by decades of corrupt charlatans like the Koch Brothers, Romney, Bush, and the rest of the multimillionaires who never produce anything but rigging the system to steal from the masses.
It is Scratch Ticket America.
And it should be loudly condemned for the fraud that it is.