Anne Romney, White Empress

By Sikivu Hutchinson

While the mainstream media slobbers over breast cancer survivor Ann Romney’s ‘just folks’ performance at last night’s Republican Convention thousands of poor and working class women across the country won’t get breast cancer screenings due to the GOP’s relentless war against providers like Planned Parenthood.  It wasn’t surprising that Romney’s rich empress trumpeting of love for women, stand by your man true grit and bootstraps Americana went over like gangbusters with the nearly lily white GOP crowd.  The fantasy that privileged political dynasty scion and hedge fund offshore account secreting multi-millionaire Mitt “made it on his own” is like crack for a GOP eager to trot out welfare queens at the eleventh hour to shore up its Timothy McVeigh base.  But Ann Romney’s speech also evoked the disgusting travesty of all the patriarchy-besotted right wing women who are fighting tooth and nail to deny working and middle class women the right to control their own bodies, destinies and families through access to basic abortion, birth control, and health care services.  With all of their fake soul love of ‘just folks’ moms who have to live off of tuna in basement apartments Romney and the GOP lynch mob’s message to American women who will have to travel one-hundred miles to find a healthcare provider because their local Planned Parenthood office has been gutted: just charter a Gulfstream.

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Anne Romney, White Empress
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16 thoughts on “Anne Romney, White Empress

  1. 1

    The other line that got me in her speech was about how we “don’t want our kids to fear success,” as if the reason why poor kids aren’t getting on better in work or education is their fear that once they get bumped up a few income tax brackets they might have to pay a higher marginal rate.

    Listening her talk about how she was born into modest surroundings and how affluent Mitt shows up and helps her become a member of the aristocracy, does she actually think this narrative is going to reach out to working women who can’t just count on a life strategy of marrying some rich guy? Yeah, I’m sure Mitt was great to you, let’s talk about the people who were casualties of Bain Capital and see how great Mitt was to them.

    When she was trying to play up her working-class roots, is she too dumb to realize the connection between a guy like Mitt making money and a worker getting a shit deal?

    1. 1.1

      When she was trying to play up her working-class roots, is she too dumb to realize the connection between a guy like Mitt making money and a worker getting a shit deal?

      Actually, I think she thinks – correctly, I’d wager – that the republican base is too stupid to realize that.

  2. 2

    I know Ann Romney has MS. I wish she would meet (and listen to!) some people with MS who can’t afford treatment. I’d like to see her open her eyes.

    I do some occasional volunteering at Planned Parenthood, and I think it’s obscene the way Republicans are ignoring the value of many of Planned Parenthood’s services in their rush to “save” all the fetuses and blastocycsts.

    Cutting funding for preventative medicine is cruel and it’s also economically stupid as it raises overall costs.

  3. 3

    More BS about some nondescript war on Women. Anne could have touted the entire DNC playbook and you still would have marginalized her because she’s white and wealthy. But it’s perfectly fine for the likes of the Obama’s to have money.

    Racist much?

    What a stupid blog.

    1. 3.1

      You’re right Norton, pointing out that the Right’s incessant efforts to ax Planned Parenthood and thereby take away an important health resource from low income women is totally “non-descript”.

      And yes, those poor wealthy white people. Was there ever such a marginalized group? When will people realize what a terrible injustice it is for them to [gasp] pay taxes?!?!?!?

      Also, Anne isn’t being criticized because she’s white or wealthy. She’s being criticized because she’s a clueless asshole who mistakes her privilege for something she’s earned or is entitled to. She’s being criticized for her hypocrisy regarding women’s health care. She’s being criticized, ultimately, because she has fundamentally failed to empathize with her fellow human beings and steadfastly refuses to acknowledge any perspective outside of her own.

    2. 3.4

      Ah yes, thanks for re-schooling me on the first unimpeachable rule of white supremacy, i.e., that power doesn’t get named for what it really is ala rich white corporate downsizer/outsourcer billionaires paying 15% in taxes (far less than the average-looking-for-a-handout-American) lobbying for more tax cuts for the super-wealthy, no capital gains and no affordable health care for the looking-for-a-handout working class…no empirical fact there.

    3. 3.5

      Her having money isn’t the problem. It’s how she got it, off the backs of freshly unemployed laborers, getting rich off the gutting of the working poor and middle class. It’s the fact that she doesn’t want to pay the fair share of taxes on it. It’s also because she purports to be speaking for me, Ms. everyday working person, while at the same time supporting a platform which seeks to strip me of my basic right to bodily autonomy and health care. Things she doesn’t have to worry about losing, because hey, rich/famous guy for husband. Pointing out such things is a far cry from racist, and the people who *run damn near everything* can hardly be marginalised by the speaking up of those they step on to gain more power.

      She may claim to, but she doesn’t speak for me. I have yet to hear anyone in the GoP who speaks for me.

  4. 5

    Norton Burgess @ #3:

    some nondescript war on Women.

    I do not think that word means what you think it means.

    From Meriam-Webster:

    non·de·script adj ˌnän-di-ˈskript
    Definition of NONDESCRIPT

    1
    : belonging or appearing to belong to no particular class or kind : not easily described
    2
    : lacking distinctive or interesting qualities : dull, drab
    — nondescript noun

    Unless, of course, Norton Burgess means that it’s:
    1: ubiquitous and hard to define since it’s everywhere; or
    2: boring and meaningless since it doesn’t personally affect him.

    …or both.

  5. 6

    Ann Romney won the illness lottery by being a rich white person.

    When she has to worry about losing her insurance, or her job, or her housing, or when she can’t pay for medications and has to beg them from the manufacturer, or when she can’t afford to see her doctors, or when she dies from lack of treatment — only then will she be “just folks”. Not before.

    1. Ray
      6.1

      Your racism is vile and disgusting. Of all the many things worth criticizing in the GOP, you attack Anne Romney for being a breast cancer survivor who is “white and wealthy”.

      1. The criticism is Ann Romney portraying herself as a “just folks” ordinary person who is at one with the struggles of ordinary people. By marrying a rich white man, Ann Romney was guaranteed the best treatment, which is something that more and more people cannot afford mostly because of the way people like her rich white husband earn money – they do it by gutting worker compensation.

        If Ann Romney was honest, she would admit that her ability to survive cancer has everything to do with her privileges. Most women in her position are not so lucky. Ann Romney knows nothing of their struggles because when a crisis affects her, there’s a mountain of wealth to handle her crisis, while plenty of other women don’t have the same options.

        She isn’t being attacked for who she is, but for deliberately misrepresenting who she is.

  6. F
    7

    She survived breast cancer because she is better than you, all you slackers who can’t afford to buy your own doctors or hospitals or insurance (insurance what doesn’t screw you over at every turn). Don’t you see how inspiring that is?

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