Trigger warning for descriptions of bullying.
Hey, everyone, remember how Mitt Romney is a femmephobic, queerphobic doucheface?
A few days later, Friedemann entered Stevens Hall off the school’s collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Lauber’s hair. Friedemann followed them to a nearby room where they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors.
Let’s be clear here. This is not childish hijinks. This is not a prank. This is an assault and battery. It is a crime.
Lauber turned out to be gay, and some of the bullying he experienced was probably related to his being a gay boy in the sixties, a time in which he probably felt even more alone than queer people do nowadays. However, I really dislike the facile idea that “oh, it’s because he was gay”; I think it erases some of the complexities of the situation. It was also because he was shy, and he was quiet, and he had a “girly” haircut, and he was “effeminate” (as if that’s even a meaningful thing)– traits that bullied straight boys can and do have. Homosexuality was only one of the ways in which he failed to perform masculinity to Romney’s specifications, and only one of the reasons he was punished with it with assault.
I would not be quite so irritated if Romney said “yes, I did it, but I have grown as a person since then and regret it deeply.” Many people are bullies and kyriarchal assholes and then learn better; in fact, I think it’s probably a point in your favor and shows personal growth and the ability to recognize that you’ve done things that are downright evil and stop doing them. Instead, Romney has said he didn’t remember. Which leaves one with two options:
1) He’s lying out his ass.
2) Assaulting people because they were too effeminate for his taste was such a common thing for him in high school that all the times it happened just kind of blended together and, when pressed, he cannot recall any specific incidents.
Neither of those is… a particularly good option.
Romney performed many pranks in high school. Although it’s hard for me to imagine responding to a prank with anything other than “oh gaaaaah no please stop no please no aaaaaaaaaaah,” I am told that many people enjoy them. However, the key part of a prank is that, in the end, everyone involved has to be laughing about it. Lauber was not. Depicting bullying and assault as youthful fun is a common way of erasing the very real pain they can cause, even years later, and the ways they are used as a tool to police away difference threatening to the kyriarchal system. Romney was a femmephobic, queerphobic bully, and I see no signs that he has learned to change.
Actually, I can think of two more options: 3. There are things about that time period that are painful for him to think about (possibly only indirectly related to the incident in question, if at all), so he really doesn’t want to remember. 4. He believes that honestly telling people that he regrets the incident will cost him votes with some of the extremists within his party, and that he needs every vote he can get. It’s basically a slightly-less suspicious sounding “no comment”. (While this may technically be “lying”, I wouldn’t consider it being “lying out of his ass”… Read more »
If he is “lying for practical reasons” the only practical reasons are to ensure he gets elected. It’s not like he’s lying in some altruistic cause, the reason is to increase his own power and prestige. So, no, he doesn’t get a pass.
It could be #3 but there’s little evidence to suggest Romney’s youth was traumatic. (For him, anyway. Clearly it was traumatic for at least one other person)
Perhaps I’m being too charitable, but I tend to assume that politicians don’t run for office entirely for their own power and prestige. (Aside from high-functioning sociopaths, anyway.) They also do it because, rightly or wrongly, they believe that they’ll be able to make the part of the world they have authority over a better place. In the U.S. today, people who don’t lie a little about their pasts have approximately zero chance of getting elected. (And boring nobodies who have nothing to lie about also have about zero chance.) For example, do you think Martin Luther King Jr. would… Read more »
Not entirely, no. And I’m sure Romney certainly believes that his Presidency would be good for America. But it can’t just be overlooked that the altruistic end he’s pushing for just coincidentally massively elevates his personal prestige, power, and in the long-term earning potential. If Romney was covering up his bullying in order to, I don’t know, donate large sums of money to a charity (christ knows what kind of scenario would involve that, but let’s presume) it would be a different story.
#4 is a subset of #1, but actually ascribes a motive that makes sense. A good-sized chunk of the Republican base is very homophobic. “I regret bullying that one guy who turned out to be gay” has been constantly interpreted by homophobes as “Gay people are awesome!!!” instead of “Bullying is bad.” This is also why so many Republicans are against anti-bullying laws. To them, bullying = harmless name-calling, cruel pranks (“swirlies,” shoving kids in lockers, “pants-ing,” etc.) and VERY minor fistfights that cause no permanent physical damage. This is not what bullying has meant in my experience, nor would… Read more »
I’m a Republican who has some doubts about anti-bullying legislation. I also was target of some moderate bullying while I was in middle school. I don’t share the reasoning that The_L assigns to Republicans who have doubts about anti-bullying legislation. My doubts exist out of a concern for individual freedom, not out of some ideological belief that “gay = harmful”. My fear is that anti-bullying legislation might be used to prevent students from expressing certain political views. Students debating the merits of gay marriage or estimating the total economic cost of illegal immigration will likely offend others, or make others… Read more »
The logic behind this sort of behavior is painfully simple: Premise 1). There is no such thing as subjectivity (so beauty, masculinity, normality and such all have Absolute Definitions; the mere fact that everyone’s definition of such things differs is inconsequential) Premise 2). Everything is within your control; anyone can be a Wall Street executive, and if they’re not, they’re just not trying hard enough (consequently, anything bad that happens to you is your fault) Conclusion 3). Lauber and others like him bring this sort of thing on themselves by deliberately choosing not to be “normal” Ignoring the fact that… Read more »