The GOP attempts to shore up the glaring faults of their candidate Mitt Romney are prime examples of how the GOP is very clever at coming up with trivial slogans, but unable to develop credible and substantive ideas. Witness the current controversy about “the war on women” that seeks to exploit a comment by an Obama consultant that “Ann Romney never worked a day in her life.” This errant comment is seized upon by the GOP as a supposed attack on the right of women to choose to be “stay at home” moms. A spokeswoman for the GOP says that there is no war on women but that Democrats are waging a war on “reality.” The Obama campaign has this been obliged to respond by disavowing the comment, at least as it has been interpreted.
All of this is a tempest in a teapot. GOP claims that Democrats are out of touch with reality are belied by the many all too concrete examples of GOP inspired and passed legal measures that attack and undermine women’s reproductive choice, access to health care, education of children and attacks on teacher employment. A recent initiative in Wisconsin seeks to undermine rights of women to sue for wage discrimination based upon gender. In the teacher employment example, women make up the large majority of women and teaching at the K-12 level is unfortunately viewed stereotypically as a “women’s profession.” So an attack on teacher job security is a surrogate for attacks on women. Other listed issues are more feminist than exclusively female in that concern for the well-being of children and their education above corporate profits and power struggles based upon masculine normativity are feminist issues. In short, the GOP can claim that Democrats are out of touch with reality, but they cannot hide the actual damage the GOP is doing to the rights and liberties of women.
Hypocrisy is nothing new to the GOP, however. The attack on contraception is a prime example. Yes, the Catholic religion “officially” forbids contraception despite more than 80% of women Catholics who disapprove and disregard the edict. But in the US, freedom of religion permits a woman who rejects such paternalistic dogma to walk away. In contrast, a general law that prohibits contraception or criminalizes abortion circumvents freedom of religion and conscience and dictates choices women may have regardless of their beliefs. On one hand, the GOP decries government intrusion, and at the same time it promotes and enacts measures that invade the most private aspects of a person’s life.
It would be easy to get bogged down in minutiae, but the Democrats have real work to do. The REAL substance of the Ann Romney comment is not about her equivocal choice to be a stay at home mom. It is that her lifestyle has so far removed her from the real challenges facing the average American family that she cannot credibly speak as a leader or even an enlightened representative to the daily issues that affect most women. Hiring nannies and chefs may be challenging, but it has little resonance with the struggles of millions of women and families trying to just put decent meals on the table and access to decent health care. These are issues that Ann Romney knows nothing about except in some very abstract way. The issue is not "mommy wars" but rather "class wars" that wealthy elite like Romney are inflicting upon the poor and middle classes. The same theme is applicable regarding Mitt Romney and unemployment. A man who made a vast fortune dismantling and cannibalizing companies, and throwing hundreds of thousands of people out of work in the process, is probably not the best qualified person to lead in the area of promoting the interests of the millions of unemployed. He can, however, represent the interests of non-working shareholders whose only concern is increasing profit whether at the expense of destitute families or not. Romney has outspent his opponents 4 to 1 in order to attain the position of GOP candidate. Does anyone believe that he will trun away from holding the interests of the wealthy elite as his prime objective if he were elected?
And so the Democrats should not allow their attention to be distracted from the core issues of the economy, jobs, health care and education. These are the issues that really matter to most people. Seriously harmful but wacky legislation that would force doctors to effectively rape a woman seeking medical assistance for an unwanted or even coerced pregnancy can be repealed and undone if the GOP majorities in those states are defeated. But their defeat will not come about by engaging in trivial squabbles. It will only happen when people begin to realize that ideological demagoguery about “freedom” and “democracy” paired with measures that restrict liberty and destroy individual rights and voices is a cynical game. The object of the game is to shift wealth up to the 1% and shift all risk and burdens downward upon the non-wealthy. If focus is kept on the big issues instead of sweating the small stuff, there is a possibility for the nation to become great again. Quibbling over slogans and playing the GOP games of denial and dissembling will only further erode the potential for success and meaningful lives for the great majority of Americans.
