By Robert Reich
Robert Reich
What could Romney’s handlers be thinking when they hyped his connection with Donald Trump — fundraising with Trump, offering supporters the possibility of a meal with Trump, relishing Trump’s attention and endorsement?
Trump signifies everything Romney presumably doesn’t want people to associate with himself — conspicuous wealth, arrogance, hubris, and a distinct preference for money over all other human values.
Trump, like Romney, represents almost everything that’s wrong with the American economy today — an unprecedented amount of wealth and power at the very top, widespread insecurity and declining real wages for everyone else, and a form of casino capitalism that places huge bets with other peoples’ money and depends on everyone else to bail it out when the bets turn sour.
But wait a minute. Perhaps Romney’s handlers are smarter than they seem. Maybe Mitt has decided to let it all hang out. Rather than try to hide what’s obvious to everyone, the new strategy is to make Romney’s liabilities into assets by flaunting them. Be even bigger and bolder. Money rules!
In fact, they’re mulling an even bigger and bolder move. They recall how Bill Clinton’s choice of Al Gore as running mate in 1992 — someone very much like Clinton — accentuated Clinton’s youthful energy, the new generation he represented, and the new start Clinton wanted to give America.
So they figure Mitt’s choice of Trump as running mate will allow Mitt to celebrate his boundless capacity to make money, the “I’ve got mine and the hell with you” financiers and CEOs he represents, and the social Darwinism that he and the regressive right are convinced will be good for America.
The new bumper-sticker: ROMNEY-TRUMP IN 2012. YOU’RE FIRED!
Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and was previously the secretary of labor during the Clinton administration. He is the author of “Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future.” His writings can also be found on his personal blog.
Robert,
Other then being a college professor and writer, just how many employee’s do you employ on a daily basis? Do you own a corporation or small business that actually deals with REAL WORLD situations, or just the college level gov’t supported ones! It would be nice to see someone that has business experience run this country, not a college professor like Obama. I wouldn’t let him run my families lemonade stand! So it seems that the rest of America may well feel the same way, are you willing to bet Obama is a one term President??? I am!
The President does not lead a corporation, he leads a country and a government. Having someone with business experience as the head of government is meaningless if that person does not support policies that will spur job growth and bring the United States out of recession. In this economy, the problem is a lack of demand. There is less demand because people have less money. They have less money because they have less jobs. Most corporations have no incentives to create jobs in the United States, not because of suffocating corporate regulations, but because workers in the United States simply demand a higher wage. In such a scenario, the government must be the one to put money into the economy to create jobs and stimulate demand. Reich as well as the economist Dean Baker have noted that cutting spending rather than increasing it, austerity, has led to a double dip recession in parts of Europe already. Business experience is totally irrelevant, as it has only led Romney to reject this path, the quickest one out of recession, and instead embrace corporate deregulation and austerity, both of which will hurt the majority of Americans.