Who Do They Think They Are?

[phantom power]

FYI, this is a small fraction of the entire post.

Joseph Kraft defined "Middle America" as a blue collar or rural white male, "traditional in his values and defensive against innovation." Ever since then, the denizens of the beltway have deluded themselves into thinking they speak for that "silent majority." (And what a serendipitous coincidence it was that this happened at the moment of a right wing political ascension that also made a fetish out of the same blue collar white male.) The converse of this, of course, is that they also assume that the "fringe" liberals from the coasts are way out of the mainstream, even to the extent that editors of Time simply make up data to conform to Kraft's outdated observations.

(...)

Here you had the most powerful people in the world identifying themselves with Bedford Falls from "It's A Wonderful Life" when the court of Versailles or Augustan Rome would be far more more apt. The lack of self-awareness is breathtaking. Thirty years after Kraft's epiphany, this decadent world capital that had recently seen the likes of Richard Nixon's crimes and John F. Kennedy's philandering (and corruption of all types, both moral and legal at the highest levels for years), were now telling the nation that they themselves were small town burghers and factory workers upholding traditional American values. And even more amazing, the rest of America was now morally suspect and needed to be led by these purveyors of Real American values:

(...)

Yet, even while they ostentatiously ranted and wailed hysterically with anachronistic notions of bourgeois American values, they still carried on as if the White House and the nation's capital belonged to them instead of the American people, which is the very definition of elitism. What an achievement! The very rich and powerful (but we won't talk about that) "bourgeoisie" now had to save degenerate "Middle America" from itself.

When the equally phony George W. Bush came to town it was love at first sight, and why wouldn't it be? Here you had a man whom these people could truly admire --- a rich man of the bluest blood, born into one of the most powerful families in America who nonetheless pretended to be some hick from Midland Texas. He took great pride in his phoniness, just as they did, and they all danced this absurd kabuki in perfect step for years each pretending to the other that they were all "just regular guys."

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/who-do-they-think-they-are-by-digby-in.html

[Phredicles]

1. Ass-kickingly magnificent!

I actually didn't know about digby before this; thanks!