Mitt Romney, what the fuck. Your correspondent has just spent the past few hours offline, nutting out the intricacies of the US Senate race for the benefit of readers. Sent it off, and went back online to check that nothing big had happened in those few hours — nothing ever has — and found that fah chrissake, Romney has found a new way to throw the election.

Speaking to a fund-raiser earlier in the year, the Romster noted:

“There are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47% who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims …”

He went on to say:

“Who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what … These are people who pay no income tax.”

The killer line? Here ’tis:

“My job is is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

All catnip for the multimillionaires assembled in a smoke-filled room (lapsang souchong) knowing they were out of hearing of the riff-raff. Except, erm, someone was filming the thing. And leftish magazine Mother Jones got a hold of the vid, and posted it.

The uproar has consumed the American politisphere for the past few hours of the afternoon and evening, with even the National Review, faithful lapdog, having to pay attention. The Romney camp issued a clarifier:

“Mitt Romney wants to help all Americans struggling in the Obama economy. As the governor has made clear all year, he is concerned about the growing number of people who are dependent on the federal government, including the record number of people who are on food stamps …”

While the Obama camp issued a response:

“It’s shocking that a candidate for President of the United States would go behind closed doors and declare to a group of wealthy donors that half the American people view themselves as ‘victims’, entitled to handouts, and are unwilling to take ‘personal responsibility’ for their lives. It’s hard to serve as president for all Americans when you’ve disdainfully written off half the nation.”

Twitter went wild on the incident, the GOP held their heads, and Bloomberg suggested that this was the day that Romney lost the election.

The figures, which Republicans love to use, are bullshit. In the US, what we call income tax is divided between income tax and payroll tax — the latter of which is paid by everyone employed. When this is factored in, the figure falls to 18% of Americans paying no tax, of whom most are pensioners, who have paid tax throughout their lives. And, of course, everyone pays sales tax, which is general in the US.

The idea that half the population subsist on entitlements has been done by counting anyone, families or individuals, who receive some sort of child bonus, income support, specific tax relief or the like. When that is done, tens of millions of working people — subsisting on the low wages the US market provides — are drawn into the spurious net of total dependency.

The routine, which is increasingly the tenor of the whole right-wing approach, is a pure claim of legitimacy by capital against labour. By sweeping so many working people into the maw of the “entitled” — the parasites, the free loaders — it has become somewhat autonomous. There is no advantage to saying this sort of stuff — more like that Romney and people like him, can’t not say it. It is capital speaking through people, claiming that only it creates value, and is of worth.

Comparisons will inevitably be made to Obama’s remark at a San Francisco fund-raiser in ’08, that the poor “cling to their God and guns” — caught on tape. Doubtless that had an effect in part of West Virginia and Missouri, states Obama thought he might just garb. But condescension, done not without sympathy, has a completely different feel than writing off 47% of the population …

How will it play? Romney has been hapless on foreign policy and domestic fronts — a hell of a week. Good God, the next seven weeks are going to be fun.