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<div class="timestamp">September 19, 2012</div>
<h1>It Takes One to Know One</h1>
<h6 class="byline">By
<span>
<a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/nicholasdkristof/index.html" rel="author" title="More Articles by NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF"><span>NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF</span></a></span></h6>
<div id="articleBody">
<p>
As I watched a video of Mitt Romney scolding moochers suffering from a
culture of dependency, I thought of American soldiers I’ve met in
Afghanistan and Iraq. They don’t pay federal income tax while they’re in
combat zones, and they rely on government benefits when they come back.
</p>
<p>
Even if they return unscathed, most will never pay lofty sums in federal
income taxes. No, all they offer our nation is their lives, while
receiving government benefits — such as a $100,000 “death gratuity” to
their wives or husbands when killed. </p>
<p>
Maybe I’m being unfair, for I’m sure that when Romney complained <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/watch-full-secret-video-private-romney-fundraiser">in that video</a> about freeloaders, he didn’t mean soldiers. But the 47 percent (<a title="A pdf" href="http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/1001547-Why-No-Income-Tax.pdf">more accurately, 46 percent</a>)
of American families whom he scorned because they don’t pay federal
income taxes includes many other modestly paid workers or retirees who
have contributed far more meaningfully to America than some who can
shell out $50,000 to attend a fund-raiser like the one where Romney
spoke in May. </p>
<p>
What about the underpaid kindergarten teacher in an inner-city school?
What about young police officers and firefighters? What about social
workers struggling to help abused children? </p>
<p>
One lesson is the narcissism of many in today’s affluent class. They
manage to feel victimized by the tax code — even as they sometimes enjoy
a lower rate than their secretaries and ride corporate jets acquired
with the help of tax loopholes. </p>
<p>
While self-pitying Republicans focus on federal income taxes (mostly
paid by the rich), what’s more relevant is the overall tax bill —
including state, local and federal taxes of all kinds. According to
Citizens for Tax Justice, the majority of American families pay more
than one-quarter of incomes in total taxes — and that may be more than
Romney pays. </p>
<p>
Romney is a smart man and, his friends say, a pragmatist rather than an
ideologue, so what possessed him to say these things? There’s an
underlying truth there — we do have a problem with entitlements and with
freeloaders — and he inflated it beyond recognition. Perhaps he has
passed so much time in a Republican primary bubble, hearing moans about
the parasitic 47 percent, that he didn’t appreciate how obtuse and
arrogant such comments appear. </p>
<p>
The furor also reflects the central political reality today: the
Republican Party has moved far, far to the right so that, on some
issues, it veers into extremist territory. </p>
<p>
<a title="A Times article" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/12/us/politics/jeb-bush-takes-aim-at-fellow-republicans.html">Jeb Bush noted earlier this year</a>
that even conservative icons like President Ronald Reagan wouldn’t fit
easily into today’s Republican Party. President Richard Nixon, <a title="An Atlantic article" href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/12/gallery-why-nixon-created-the-epa/67351/">who founded the Environmental Protection Agency</a>,
would be a lefty. This year, Republican primary voters have been
further purging the party of centrist remnants, like Senator Richard
Lugar, a foreign policy heavyweight who deserves America’s thanks for
helping make us safer from loose nukes. </p>
<p>
When I was growing up in Oregon, it was Democrats who were typically the crazies. Gov. George Wallace (“<a title="The complete 1963 address" href="http://web.utk.edu/~mfitzge1/docs/374/wallace_seg63.pdf">segregation forever</a>”) tapped into populist resentments in his presidential campaigns. Lyndon Larouche <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/cult/larouche/main.htm">was a cult leader</a> seeking the Democratic nomination. </p>
<p>
Oregon’s senators then were Mark Hatfield and Bob Packwood, both Republicans of a kind that barely exist today. <a title="His August 2011 obituary in The Times" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/08/us/politics/08hatfield.html">Hatfield was a strong opponent of the Vietnam War</a>,
and Packwood supported abortion rights. Oregon’s governor at the time,
Tom McCall, was a Republican and a leading environmentalist. </p>
<p>
I called up Packwood and asked him if he and Hatfield would be
Republicans if they were starting over. “We both wondered about that,”
he said. </p>
<p>
Packwood noted that the Republican Party once attracted union support,
black support, urban and bicoastal support. “Historically, the
Republicans have been geniuses at throwing away advantages,” he said.
</p>
<p>
The <a title="A Campaign Stops posting" href="http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/17/look-how-far-weve-come-apart/">Republican shift shows up in polling</a>.
In the 1960s, more than two-thirds of Democrats and Republicans alike
expressed trust in government. That has fallen to about one-third for
Democrats — and to just 5 percent for Republicans. </p>
<p>
For me, the saddest polls are those about facts. <a title="A pdf of the complete poll" href="http://www.dartmouth.edu/~benv/files/poll%20responses%20by%20party%20ID.pdf">A Dartmouth poll this year</a>
found that Republicans believe, by a ratio of more than 3 to 1, that
“Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the United States invaded in
2003.” </p>
<p>
The same poll found that Republicans believe, almost by a 3-to-1 ratio,
that President Obama was born in another country. Democrats also suffer
from self-deception (such as a reluctance to credit improvements under a
Republican president), but today’s Republicans seem disproportionately
untethered to reality. </p>
<p>
Another illustration of radicalizing self-delusion comes when the son of a governor and corporate chief executive <a title="A complete transcript of the video from Mother Jones" href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/full-transcript-mitt-romney-secret-video">says that</a> “everything that Ann and I have, we earned the old-fashioned way, and that’s by hard work.” </p>
<p>
Romney has proved himself right: We manifestly do have a problem with
people who see themselves as victims even as they benefit from loopholes
in the tax code. </p>
<p>
One is running for president. </p>
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<br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)<br><a href="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com" target="_blank">art.deco.studios@gmail.com</a><br><br><img src="http://users.moscow.com/waf/WP%20Fox%2001.jpg"><br><br>