Let Them Eat Organic Arugula
By LisaB on February 5, 2010 at 8:00 PM in Current Affairs
| For liberals, the observation that “the peasants are revolting” is a pun. – Charles Krauthammer |
Charles Krauthammer wrote a wonderful piece titled “The Great Peasant Revolt.” He explains how he thinks Obama politics got where it is today. It’s a short piece and to the point. Worth your time. I think Krauthammer is getting weary of all the “but they’re all so STUPID” wails from the progressives. Would you agree?
Liberal expressions of disdain for the intelligence and emotional maturity of the electorate have been, post-Massachusetts, remarkably unguarded. New York Times columnist Charles Blow chided Obama for not understanding the necessity of speaking “in the plain words of plain folks,” because the people are “suspicious of complexity.” Counseled Blow: “The next time he gives a speech, someone should tap him on the ankle and say, ‘Mr. President, we’re down here.’ ”
A Time magazine blogger was even more blunt about the ankle-dwelling mob, explaining that we are “a nation of dodos” that is “too dumb to thrive.”
Obama joined the parade in the State of the Union address when, with supercilious modesty, he chided himself “for not explaining it [health care] more clearly to the American people.” The subject, he noted, was “complex.” The subject, it might also be noted, was one to which the master of complexity had devoted 29 speeches. Perhaps he did not speak slowly enough.
————-That brings us to Part 2 of the liberal conceit: Liberals act in the public interest, while conservatives think only of power, elections, self-aggrandizement and self-interest.
———This belief in the moral hollowness of conservatism animates the current liberal mantra that Republican opposition to Obama’s social democratic agenda — which couldn’t get through even a Democratic Congress and powered major Democratic losses in New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts — is nothing but blind and cynical obstructionism.
By contrast, Democratic opposition to George W. Bush — from Iraq to Social Security reform — constituted dissent. And dissent, we were told at the time, including by candidate Obama, is “one of the truest expressions of patriotism.”
No more. Today, dissent from the governing orthodoxy is nihilistic malice. “They made a decision,” explained David Axelrod, “they were going to sit it out and hope that we failed, that the country failed” — a perfect expression of liberals’ conviction that their aspirations are necessarily the country’s, that their idea of the public good is the public’s, that their failure is therefore the nation’s.
————-
For liberals, the observation that “the peasants are revolting” is a pun. For conservatives, it is cause for uncharacteristic optimism. No matter how far the ideological pendulum swings in the short term, in the end the bedrock common sense of the American people will prevail.
Commentary, citing Krauthammer’s column as well, sees a coming clash between those peasants and the Obama government.
Where this is heading is a collision of great magnitude. One cannot consider the electorate to be a bunch of rubes and get away with it for very long. One can’t pursue an agenda that the public disdains and get re-elected.
. . . . But the rubes organized — in town halls and in Tea Parties — and they turned out to vote in New Jersey, Virginia, and Massachusetts. So the window of opportunity shut faster than they imagined.
Anyone who saw Obama during the primaries, in particular, should never have been surprised that “middle America” was beneath him – one of many reasons he put me off. TNR, recognizing this, casts it in a “but he’s from Mars” sense. In other words, Obama’s just different and we don’t communicate; so well, bummer, but he’s still great.
Here is a fact: Barack Obama has trouble generating enthusiasm among white working class voters. That’s not because they are white. He would have had trouble winning support among black working class voters if they had been unable to identify with him because he was black. He has trouble with working class voters because he appears to them as coming from a different world, a different realm of experience, a different class, if you like. And that’s because he does.
Er, right. Obama’s a Lightbringer, too. At least TNR doesn’t blame it all on racism. Obama’s different than you and me. For sure. But that’s a FEATURE, not a deficiency, you know. Here’s why:
There is no paradox, therefore, in Obama’s distance from white working class voters. What would be unusual is if he were able to echo their concerns in a deeply moving rather than in a somewhat mechanical way.
Yes, there have been some gifted politicians of an upper class or professional background who have been able to do so. Some, like Bill Clinton, Lyndon Johnson, or Ronald Reagan, could draw upon their working class childhoods; others, like Franklin Roosevelt or Edward Kennedy, could evince a kind of upper-class paternalism. This made them great politicians.
It didn’t necessarily make them great men or great Americans. Barack Obama is, by any fair measure, a great American, and he could turn out to be a great president. But he is not yet a great politician. He has not been able to transcend the political limits of his own social background. And that has been one of his problems as he attempts to extricate America from the mess he inherited.
Ewwww. Talk about making a virtue out of necessity.
WaPo takes up the whole “condescension” issue when discussing liberals and conservatives and comes to the same conclusion as Krauthammer.
But, if conservative leaders are crass manipulators, then the rank-and-file Americans who support them must be manipulated at best, or stupid at worst. This is the second variety of liberal condescension, exemplified in Thomas Frank’s best-selling 2004 book, “What’s the Matter With Kansas?” Frank argued that working-class voters were so
distracted by issues such as abortion that they were induced into voting against their own economic interests. Then-Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, later chairman of the Democratic National Committee, echoed that theme in his 2004 presidential run, when he said Republicans had succeeded in getting Southern whites to focus on “guns, God and gays” instead of economic redistribution.And speaking to a roomful of Democratic donors in 2008, then-presidential candidate Obama offered a similar (and infamous) analysis when he suggested that residents of Rust Belt towns “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations” about job losses.
When his comments became public, Obama backed away from their tenor but insisted that “I said something that everybody knows is true.”In this view, we should pay attention to conservative voters’ underlying problems but disregard the policy demands they voice; these are illusory, devoid of reason or evidence. This form of liberal condescension implies that conservative masses are in the grip of false consciousness. When they express their views at town hall meetings or “tea party” gatherings, it might be politically prudent for liberals to hear them out, but there is no reason to actually listen.
But remember that not only are these peasants, well, peasants, but remember that they’re racists too. . .
The third version of liberal condescension points to something more sinister. In his 2008 book, “Nixonland,” progressive writer Rick Perlstein argued that Richard Nixon created an enduring Republican strategy of mobilizing the ethnic and other resentments of some Americans against others.
Similarly, in their 1992 book, “Chain Reaction,” Thomas Byrne Edsall and Mary D. Edsall argued that Nixon and Reagan talked up crime control, low taxes and welfare reform to cloak racial animus and help make it mainstream. It is now an article of faith among many liberals that Republicans win elections because they tap into white prejudice against blacks and immigrants.Race doubtless played a significant role in the shift of Deep South whites to the Republican Party during and after the 1960s. But the liberal narrative has gone essentially unchanged since then — recall former president Carter’s recent assertion that opposition to Obama reflects racism —
even though survey research has shown a dramatic decline in prejudiced attitudes among white Americans in the intervening decades. Moreover, the candidates and policy agendas of both parties demonstrate an unfortunate willingness to play on prejudices, whether based on race, regional stereotypes, class and income, or other factors.
And the sun comes up in the east. Yeah, we know.
WaPo also notes a star in the progressive blogosphere and his contribution to civil discourse on this matter:
Markos Moulitsas, publisher of the influential progressive Web site Daily Kos, commissioned a poll, which he released this month, designed to show how many rank-and-file Republicans hold odd or conspiratorial beliefs — including 23 percent who purportedly believe that their states should secede from the Union.
Moulitsas concluded that Republicans are “divorced from reality” and that the results show why “it is impossible for elected Republicans to work with Democrats to improve our country.” His condescension is superlative: Of the respondents who favored secession, he wonders, “Can we cram them all into the Texas Panhandle, create the state of Dumb-[expletive]-istan, and build a wall around them to keep them from coming into America illegally?”
I have no idea where these people get the idea that listening to others is optional, that they are morally superior, and that anyone who disagrees is a lesser species. Their current attitude reminds me of the pigs in Animal Farm (you know, Progressives – Good; Anyone else – BAD). But Orwell left it there. I think, had the story continued, those pigs would eventually have said something like “Let them eat cake.”
And I bet, ultimately, those pigs would have been ham.
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