Alex Henderson

Presidential Politics

"Bon jour. Je m’appelle Mitt Romney”: Newt Gingrich Se Mette en Colère Parce Que Mitt Romney Parle Francais

By Alex Henderson
RealmNoir, January 16, 2012

Republicans of the neocon/Christian Right persuasion are infamous for hating entire groups of people. They hate African-Americans, they hate Latinos, they hate gay men and lesbians, they hate Muslims, they hate atheists and agnostics, and of course, they hate the French. But if a recent political ad from Newt Gingrich is any indication, the group of people they hold in the lowest regard of all are rednecks.

The target of Gingrich’s ad (which ran in South Carolina) was former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who Gingrich is running against in the GOP presidential primary. In the ad, Gingrich tried to paint Romney as a Massachusetts liberal who is masquerading as a conservative—and in a sloppy attempt to link Romney to Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, the ad stated that Republicans voters should oppose Romney because, like Kerry, he speaks French. The Gingrich campaign comes up with some damning evidence: an old clip of Romney saying, “Bon jour. Je m’appelle Mitt Romney.” And the ad states, “Massachusetts moderate Mitt Romney—he’ll say anything to win. And just like John Kerry, he speaks French too.”

Mon dieu, quelle horreur! Mitt Romney parle beaucoup francais! Why, he’s probably been to the top of the Eiffel Tower. He’s probably a Brigitte Bardot fan. He probably owns a beret or two and knows all the lyrics to “Mon Legionnaire” and “La Vie en Rose.” If elected president, he would no doubt put a giant bust of Edith Piaf in the White House and change the name of Pennsylvania Avenue to La Rue St. Denis or L’Avenue de Clichy. Ooo la la!

Gingrich’s ad is offensive and bigoted on many levels. It promotes ignorance (there are many reasons to oppose Romney, but his ability to speak French is not one of them), and it sends out a message that education is a bad thing. But most offensive of all is what Gingrich is really saying to the GOP’s white evangelical southern base. Read between the lines, and Gingrich’s message to rednecks is as follows: you’re ignorant, you’re crude, you’re low-class, you’re bigoted, you’re white trash, you’re a knuckle-dragger. So why not vote for the candidate who not only tolerates your bigotry, but celebrates it? Vote for Newt Gingrich, rednecks; he’s one of you.

Actually, millionaire Gingrich isn’t part of the white southern working class his ad is trying to appeal to. Gingrich, unlike millions of poor or lower middle class whites in the southern states, won’t have to worry about lacking health insurance, facing a foreclosure or working a dead-end minimum wage job anytime soon. But Gingrich wants them to think that he has stronger good ol’ boy credentials than a “RINO” like Romney, and according to Gingrich’s anti-Romney ad, being able to speak French (or presumably, any other foreign language) is a sure sign that one is a “RINO.” Gingrich’s ad, however, ends up insulting the GOP base even more than it insults Romney. Gingrich’s ad assumes the absolute worst about the white, conservative small-town Republicans he is trying to appeal to: he assumes that they are ass-backwards and proud of it. Republicans often speak of the “bigotry of low expectations,” and Gingrich’s are obviously quite low if one is white, rural, working class and politically right-of-center.

Attacks on Americans who can speak a foreign language are nothing new coming from neocons and the far right. In 2004, the far right attacked John Kerry for his proficiency in French; in 2007, far-right talk radio neocon Laura Ingraham went ballistic because Sen. Chris Dodd (a candidate in the Democratic presidential primary at the time) briefly spoke some Spanish to a young Latino man during a CNN debate. And when Barack Obama (who speaks some Indonesian) was on the campaign trail in 2008, he was demonized for saying that Americans should learn foreign languages instead of being monolingual. Obama was advocating something that Republicans claim to believe in: more skills, more knowledge and more education. But truth be told, the Newt Gingrichs of the world don’t want a smart, educated electorate; they believe that keeping your voters as dumbed down as possible is one sure-fire way to keep them under your boot.

Unfortunately for the Republican Party, bigotry, divisiveness and anti-intellectualism have their limitations. The more groups of people that GOP politicians alienate—the more the GOP offends African-Americans, Latinos, Jews, gay men and lesbians, non-evangelicals or anyone who can speak a foreign language—the smaller the GOP base will inevitably become in the future. That doesn’t mean that people the GOP alienates will automatically become card-carrying Democrats. A right-of-center American who resents being told that he/she is un-American for learning to speak French, Spanish or German might turn to the Libertarian Party, and even though that doesn’t mean more votes for the Democratic Party, it does mean fewer voters for Republicans.

It’s ironic that as much as Romney  has been pandering to the Christian Right extremists on social issues, he still isn’t far enough to the right for them. And equally ironic is the fact that the same Newt Gingrich who attacks Romney for his French-speaking skills has also attacked Sen. Ron Paul for being an “isolationist.” It’s a total contradiction: if “isolationism” is bad, as Gingrich and other neocons claim, then it makes sense for Americans to learn as many foreign languages as possible. Gingrich knows damn well that being multi-lingual is considered a major plus if one would like to work for the CIA, but he is hoping that the good ol’ boys south of the Mason Dixon don’t know that. And the fact that Gingrich does know better makes his attack on French-speaking Americans all the more buffoonish and idiotic.

Gingrich might be contemptuous of liberals and progressives as well as libertarians, but as his anti-Romney ad demonstrates, he reserves his greatest contempt for the white rural Republican base he claims to represent.

  Alex Henderson is a veteran journalist whose work has appeared in The L.A. Weekly, AlterNet, Billboard, Spin, XBIZ, Creem, The Pasadena Weekly and a long list of other well-known publications.  He can be followed on Twitter @alexvhenderson.