Elections in America: Millionaires Accusing Each Other of Elitism

[laststeamtrain]

Elections in America: Millionaires Accusing Each Other of Elitism
By Brad Reed, AlterNet
Posted on April 14, 2008, Printed on April 14, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/82268/

Millionaire lawyers, politicians and journalists are all savaging Barack Obama for being an elitist.

Obama's particular crime in this case was saying that Democrats have done a lousy job of dealing with the concerns of working-class Americans, thus allowing the Republicans to swoop in with their God-Guns-n-Gays brand of politics that scapegoats homosexuals, illegal immigrants and George Clooney as the prime culprits behind blue-collar woes. This is not a particularly new argument, and has been a popular theme in mainstream discourse ever since author Thomas Frank published his excellent book What's the Matter With Kansas? in 2004. Nevertheless, both the media and the rival candidates pounced on Obama's statements and accused him of making "outrageous San Francisco remarks" and of "offending small town America." Worst of all, Obama's words rendered him an "elitist" in the eyes of his critics, which in American political discourse is akin to being a child molester or a Frenchman.

But is Barack Obama really an elitist as his opponents claim? Well of course he is -- he's running for president of the United States! He wouldn't have gotten this far in life if he'd spent the past 20 years driving a truck or moonlighting as a fry cook at Arby's. Like every other successful politician in the United States, Obama is a member of America's political ruling class, which means that like every other presidential candidate in recent memory, he is typically insulated from the lives of ordinary people. Does Obama really have any idea what it's like to live like a "Real American?" Of course he doesn't, and neither do John McCain and Hillary Clinton! Does any rational person out there believe that Obama, Clinton and McCain spend their free time away from the campaign trail hanging out at Jimmy Ray's Chicken'n'Beer Depot playing darts with the common folk?

In theory, this point should be fairly obvious. Even before getting elected, most politicians made a good deal of money in their careers as lawyers, doctors, actors or oil tycoons -- you know, real salt-of-the-earth sort of work. But for reasons that have long confounded sane people everywhere, our national millionaire press corps gives positive coverage to political candidates who are the most adept at lying about their ability to connect with regular folks. And because it apparently takes too much work for our press corps to sift through the candidates' policy positions to figure out what each of them is actually offering blue-collar voters, we don't even get rational assessments of politicians' working-class cred. Instead, we get piles and piles of anecdotal evidence.

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http://www.alternet.org/election08/82268/

[Johonny]

1. It's elitist

apparently to talk about the middle class or more to the point the used to be middle class not working class poor. But it isn't elitist to go around claiming God made you president and you are the party of Jesus.

[aquart]

2. Ah, the "everybody does it" defense.

Which means the answer is: YOU BET HE'S AN ELITIST!

So, now that that has been conceded...

See, you all keep trying to tell me how different your guy is...then you keep coming back with the answer that he's no different at all...but I should just like him better anyway.

Well, I don't.

[Warpy]

3. Surreal, isn't it?

Every 4 years these plutocrats have to pretend to be just ordinary folks.

The sooner we realize they aren't and start asking them what the hell they're going to do for us and make damned sure they do it, the sooner we'll get our country back.

[bemildred]

4. You know, I had enough of rich people pretending to "cut brush" and stuff with Bush.

We have enough lying in politics already without this sort of thing.