Also On the Topic of Elites
Another very good piece, also from Rational Passion – McCain Will Win – I Will Abstain. An excerpt:
For (Bill) Maher and (Sam) Harris, the Democrats fight for the little guy, peace, justice, and all good things. And if you don’t vote for them, you’re an idiot. And a narcissistic idiot for not realizing how stupid you are! You are to defer to the wisdom of your betters–people like Maher, Harris, Obama, and other left-liberals–and shut up! Why? Because you’re stupid, fool!
If this is how you view the little guy–as a bitter, narcissistic, idiot who clings to religion, guns, and xenophobia to give him comfort and security in a world without the blessings of “progressive” Democrats in charge–how can you be said to be his representative? Note that I have nothing against elitism. I have a problem with a certain kind of elitism. I have a problem with an elitist who claims to support the little guy out of one side of his mouth while sneering at his stupid Wal-Mart-shopping-gun-toting-Bible-believing ways out of the other.
Being a left-liberal elitist is not a function of one’s economic class or educational attainment per se. Being a left-liberal elitist means believing that helping the little guy is the purpose of politics and simultaneously believing that the little guy would abandon the things that he says he values if only he had a few more dollars in his pocket and a better job, thanks to left-liberal government programs. Some people, shockingly, don’t like being told that their values–right, wrong, or in-between–are symptoms of economic deprivation! Might they be? Sure. But people don’t like being told that, and if you’re going to insult them, don’t expect them to vote for you.
READ THE WHOLE THING. This includes YOU Margaret Soltan.
And here’s the Quote of the Day, from that same piece:
No, it won’t be racism that does Barack Obama in, if he does in fact lose. For every racist white who won’t vote for Obama because he’s a black man, there’s probably a guilty white liberal desperate to vote for a black person to prove how non-racist he is. I think the racial issue is a wash–it may help Obama, and it may hurt him, but on balance, it won’t be the deciding issue. I think the deeper reason for Obama’s probable defeat is something he said in his convention speech. Obama told us why John McCain won’t embrace the brilliant Obama plan of hope and change. Obama said “It’s not because John McCain doesn’t care. It’s because John McCain doesn’t get it.” That, really, is all left-liberals have. To those of us who don’t “get it,” they can offer no reason to support their candidate or their worldview. The bulk of the press, Hollywood, academia, and our cultural institutions generally–they “get it.” They “get it” so well that the need to argue for and explain their views is a skill they’ve lost. And there are a whole bunch of us who don’t “get it” and resent being told that we don’t “get it” by people who use sneers and smears to make their case instead of arguments.
I think I need to add Rational Passion to my daily reads.