"Elitist" is used by the party's power people to keep upstarts in their places.

[madfloridian]

"Elitist" has been the "buzz" word from the wing of the Democratic Party that tends toward the right. They use it casually. It is a habit.

The word "elitist" is planned. It is meant to present a negative image of those who are educated, or who may have good incomes. There should not...in this country and in this party...be any suggestion that being educated or having enough to get by is "elite".

That is a shameful way to attack those in your own party.

Let's go back to 2003.

Al From et al gather to call Dean and his supporters elitists.

More than 50 centrist Democrats, including Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner, met here yesterday to plot strategy for the "New Democrat" movement. To help get the ball rolling they read a memo by Al From and Bruce Reed, the chairman and president of the Democratic Leadership Council. The memo dismissed Dean as an elitist liberal from the "McGovern-Mondale wing" of the party -- "the wing that lost 49 states in two elections, and transformed Democrats from a strong national party into a much weaker regional one."

"It is a shame that the DLC is trying to divide the party along these lines," said Dean spokesman Joe Trippi. "Governor Dean's record as a centrist on health care and balancing the budget speaks for itself."

As founder of the DLC, From has been pushing the Democratic Party to the right for nearly 20 years. He was in tall cotton, philosophically speaking, when an early leader of the DLC, Bill Clinton, was elected president in 1992. As Clinton's domestic policy guru, Reed pushed New Democrat ideas -- such as welfare reform -- that were often unpopular with party liberals.

"We are increasingly confident that President Bush can be beaten next year, but Dean is not the man to do it," Reed and From wrote. "Most Democrats aren't elitists who think they know better than everyone else."

They spoke about the "educated elite" as well. Not in a complimentary way.

Support from "educated elite" won't translate to winning.

Even a Gallup poll using the old "elite" theme.

August 16, 2007
Support from Academic Elite Not Key to Winning
A new Gallup poll found that Sen. Barack Obama has much higher support among the most educated voters while Sen. Hillary Clinton receives more support from those with a high school diploma or less.

However, while support among educated elites may be responsible in part for Obama’s excellent fundraising, it will not necessarily translate to electoral victory. Gallup points out that in the previous three election cycles the democratic candidate receiving the most support from the most educated -- Howard Dean in 2004, Bill Bradley in 2000, and Bob Kerrey in 1992 -- did not go on to win the party’s nomination (despite a boost in fundraising). The last democrat to win the nomination with similar skewing in support by education was Michael Dukakis in 1988.

Aw Geez, if you keep saying it over and over...it might just become reality. Put down the educated and well-informed, and all you have left is people who will fall for anything. It is not that hard to be informed about the things that affect your life. It is not an elitist thing.

The Washington Post's Perry Bacon insinuated the people who had supported Dean were elitists. He remembered that from a long ago Pew Study...that many were educated. Geez, again.

Some of us contacted him, he was sincere in thinking Dean only had the support of a few elitists.

Obama Faces the Test Dean Failed: Broadening Support

The title itself is annoying. Dean has been working to broaden support since 2004.

Like Dean and Bradley, Obama is strongest among elites, whom other Democrats derisively call "latte liberals" -- a group that voices strong opinions but is not big enough to win him the nomination. Polls show that Obama is ahead of Clinton among voters with college degrees, while Clinton has a huge lead among voters who make less than $35,000 and those who have graduated only from high school.

..."The people who he is getting money from are more elite Democrats who have more disposable income to send him," said pollster Mark Mellman, a Democrat who is not working for any of the campaigns. "That is a constituency that can create a lot of buzz but is not sufficient to win a nomination."

Here is the worst statement from that article.

Obama must turn the intense devotion of his backers into a force that can win primaries, expanding his base of support beyond the narrow band of Democratic elites who backed Dean.

Narrow band of educated elites?

It was not an accident when Hillary Clinton referred to Obama's statements this week as "elitist." She is still a leader in the think tank that controls party policy and using words like that.

Sen. Obama's remarks are elitist, and they are out of touch. They are not reflective of the values and beliefs of Americans. Certainly not the Americans that I know — not the Americans I grew up with, not the Americans I lived with in Arkansas or represent in New York.

The Politico

A concerted effort to put down those in the party who are educated, informed, and financially okay....is showing me that something is wrong our party's health.

Observe one thing...the ones using this derogatory term are themselves the wealthiest, the most powerful financially.

The "elite" are calling the ones who want to start bringing the people back into the party's decisions and structure....elitist.

[JVS]

1. The real elite isn't the people who went to college or got the better jobs, it's the people who...

own the colleges and the companies that distribute those educations and jobs.

[MrSlayer]

2. Projection is a typical Republican tactic.

Honed to razor sharp perfection by Rove. Who else could have turned a hero into a coward and an AWOL junkie into a military leader? This country is full of naive and stupid people.

[InsultComicDog]

15. so true

[Fovea]

21. Attack the strength

But of course, it is a scorched earth policy, and up til now, only Repugs used it on their own.

[Kurovski]

3. Yep. K&R.

[AtomicKitten]

4. Yep, I think of elitism when I see Barack in Africa with his black trash bag luggage

slung over his shoulder. Can't find that particular photo, but here are more that invoke the word elitism:








:sarcasm:

K&R :hi:

[madfloridian]

6. Absolutely great pictures.

Awesome.

[AtomicKitten]

25. and a K back at ya

(DU won't let me "R" again, the bastids!)

:hi:

[madfloridian]

48. Well, thanks for trying anyway.

:rofl:

[patrice]

10. Very practical. Black trash bags make excellent luggage

as long as you keep it square which is clean and which is ready for washing.

[InsultComicDog]

14. indeed

have used it as "luggage" more times than I care to remember

[patrice]

20. Good on bus and car trips. With a jacket or coat over it, you've got a pillow.

Can't remember where I was going, years and years ago, back when there were bus routes all over the country. You can put one bag inside the other, more versatile than luggage.

[madfloridian]

27. Did he really...

use a plastic bag for luggage? I love that last picture in your post.

[Eurobabe]

32. If anyone watched HBO special on Rape in the Congo

I cried the whole way through it and thought, dammit this is another reason why I want Barack to be President, we need to do more to help Africa.

Screw spending 12B a month in Iraq!! Spend it at home, get OUR country out of the shambles and let's start being a good neighbor again.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

5. so these are the dumbasses who helped undermine Dean's campaign in 04

probably worked right with FAUX NOISE to do it.

[madfloridian]

38. You are right.

But they didn't just work with Fox. They had Crossfire on CNN with Carville, Begala, and Tucker to call Dean crazy everyday.

[patrice]

7. Of all of the many thousands of ways to respond to what someone says, the choice and repetition

of this word IS interesting.

So, who're the Real elitists here?

[madfloridian]

8. Yes, over and over it is used. I have other instances, but the post was getting long.

It is planned.

[babylonsister]

9. Obama really does need to address this and throw it back

in their faces, Clinton in particular, in an eloquent, non-condescending, dare I say non'elitist? way. He's been doing so to a point, but I wish he'd have a press gaggle and let her have it.

She considers herself part of the elite of the Dem party, but now she casts that word around like it's anathema? Seems to be yet another double standard going on here.

[madfloridian]

57. He just addressed it powerfully. Link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIxmi3e2Vmo

[solito]

11. A lot of people use "elitist"

I have used it in the past. Poor peope use it against elitist people. It's there in the dictionary for anyone to use it. I think you are being a bit paranoid.

[InsultComicDog]

16. Depends on how you use it

I happen to think it is elitist thinking to bail out Bear Stearns and ignore struggling homeowners.

[madfloridian]

17. Hillary called Obama elitist. That says it all to me. Who me paranoid?

Probably.

:rofl:

[beezlebum]

34. it's the context and the messenger.

by the power of gray skull! you're right- there is a dictionary:

elite a. A group or class of persons or a member of such a group or class, enjoying superior intellectual, social, or economic status

b. The best or most skilled members of a group

(source: the free dictionary)

now madfloridian says the term is derogatory- and perhaps it's not necessarily so, but here, the way mf eloquently spelled it out, it most certainly is.

since you've used it against ppl, you know that it's not exactly a complement, and you know that it's appropriate and accurate when used to point to the aristocratic domination. but in this context, it is akin to goldberg's argument that fascism is a traditionally progressive/liberal/left-wing movement (gives me the same vibe anyway).

the context it is used against obama is the implication that he's the latte elite's candidate- elite's meaning "social and economic status." that barbie and ken are cruising in their pink barbie car sipping latte's on a shopping spree purchasing three-figure priced pantie and bra sets, but they just happen to be voting for obama cuz he's the latest fashion. or something along those lines.

that latte crap never sat well with me- i've spent the better part of the last decade in the under $35K a year income bracket, with no insurance, with barely enough money for groceries, growing my own organics in pots rather than shopping at whole foods, and i've never once in my life had so much as a sip of a latte (though i have on rare occasion grabbed a cappuccino from the gas station), and yet, for some befuddled reason, obama strikes me as the exact opposite of the "elite's candidate."

projection is an establishment tactic. it's not "paranoia" to suggest that its inner-party usage is oppressive. hillary clinton is a bilderberger- the ultimate in "elitist" power mongers. a handful of wealthy, powerful, "elite" turd nuggets. for her to call anyone elitist is nothing short of projection and obfuscation of the word, especially when she's talking about his "bitter" speech. and not just hillary, but for any of the party "elites," er, DLCers.

[RazBerryBeret]

12. here's another crazy elitist label from 1988

posted earlier

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=5471959&mesg_id=5471959

[InsultComicDog]

13. "elite" not equal to "elitist"

the former is a compliment, the latter an insult.

[madfloridian]

19. Not the way I worded it.

The rich folks with power are calling those who are trying to run a campaign based on intelligence and caring....elitists.

So if you look at it that way, both are not so hot.

[C_U_L8R]

18. Obama has run a very smart campaign

that Hillary has no possible way of beating.
So she tags the smartness of his campaign as 'elitism'.
It's classic Rove - attack your opponent's strength.
But the truth is Obama does not speak down and pander
to the worst instincts of American people like the Clintons do.
Obama respects and challenges our intellect... raises our sights
and and our spirits... and Hillary just can't beat that.

She has lost. Hillary has lost her way, her mission, her message,
and now her campaign. If she were a smart person, she'd concede
defeat while she still has some dignity.

[madfloridian]

35. Yes. he has run a smart campaign.

And relatively free of the vitriol her campaign has spouted constantly.

[formercia]

22. Fear and self-loathing from the DLC

Why don't they use the term 'uppity' like they really mean and want to say?

'New Democrats'= GOP Lite.= the operation to destroy the Democratic Party from the inside.

[madfloridian]

58. Good point.

:hi:

[madfloridian]

23. More "elitism" with a touch of "liberalism" thrown in...courtesy DLC magazine.

From 2005.

I was proud of the study that was done on Howard Dean's internet activists.

I thought it was a compliment they took the time and effort. I thought it meant we had made a difference.

Leave it to Peter Ross Range at the DLC to dirty it up and make it unacceptable to be educated and higher income. I will bet his income way outdoes my teacher retirement pay. He also adds how unacceptable it was that only 10% said they were not active church goers.

I found it insulting..his article. Our own party making us sound so unimportant.

http://dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=253348&kaid=127&subid=170

" Table of Contents
If we didn't know it already, one critical fact was confirmed by the recent Pew Research Center survey of Howard Dean's 2004 campaign activists: There is a cultural divide in America. What's troubling is that it's inside the Democratic Party.

The Pew study, while focused on 11,500 Dean supporters, nonetheless opened a revealing window on the thinking of liberal activists in the Democratic Party as a whole. One thing it told us is that the party's most active wing lives in a rarified universe of what Pew calls "a different kind of Democrat."

Listen to the numbers: Among these liberal faithful, only 1 percent are black compared to 22 percent in the rest of the party. Of those polled, 79 percent have college educations; in the Democratic Party, only 25 percent have college degrees. In this activist community, 29 percent have annual family incomes above $100,000; that's nearly three times the percentage among Democrats as a whole. Fully 38 percent of the activists say they have no connection to organized religion, and don't go to church. In the Democratic Party, that figure is only 10 percent.

"I know these people. These are my people. I am, for all cultural and demographic purposes, one of them: white, well-educated, secular, a heavy news consumer, regular NPR listener, reader of political magazines, constantly online -- the list goes on and on. The Pew poll is, in fact, a perfect description of the liberal ghetto, a kind of prosperous intellectual's nirvana concentrated on the bluest flecks of the political map, in places like Madison and Chapel Hill (where I grew up) and Chevy Chase (where I live now)."

Of course, there is a bit BUT coming......

"Heaven knows we need our activists, and God bless 'em. Let's just get them engaged in the larger center-left undertaking so Democrats can win elections, not just arguments. The Pew survey strikes a sobering note, and we should take it as a wake-up call."

Damn! A sobering note. That intelligent people are caring about their country.

The same condescending tone continues today in the voice of Hillary Clinton. This is her group. She and Bill founded it. They founded the Third Way as well with Tony Blair and other friends now out of office.

[Eurobabe]

33. Hopefully Clintons will follow

the path out of the party.

[eppur_se_muova]

24. I'm one of the elite and don't know it? Who forgot to sent me a welcoming card?

And the secret decoder ring?

Seriously, I hadn't realized the bar was set so low.

[Scurrilous]

26. K & R

:thumbsup:

[InfiniteNether]

28. Anybody else sick of the neoconservative Clintons?

I no longer have any doubt as to who the Democrat is in this race.

[xxqqqzme]

29. I can find no redeeming

character traits in from. Every thing I read about him or the trash he writes, suggests he is a sneaky weasally bastard who cannot be trusted.

[Median Democrat]

30. McCain and Clinton Irony

John McCain has a net worth of about 21 million, and he his family has long been a fixture in the U.S. Military. Hillary Clinton reported income in excess of $109 million over the past 7 years. It is ironic that these individuals claim that they are more in touch with working class Americans than Obama, who does not enjoy that sort of wealth.

It reminds me of Hillary's comment, "Dr King’s dream began to be realised when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It took a president to get it done.”

Perhaps working class Americans need a John McCain, Hillary Clinton or George Bush to help them, because like African Americans who needed a white President to help them according to Hillary, working class Americans need a multi-millionaire to relate to them to get the job done.

[cooolandrew]

31. Barack could reconstruct the word and say together as one we have elite power to change.

[madfloridian]

36. This article from Dec. 2003 is taking on new meaning now.

It just seemed like another memo back then, warning that Dean was splitting the party. It seems quite different now. There are several "warnings" there.

http://dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=252318&kaid=85&subid=65

I don't want to post much of it, pretty divisive...but it is an eye-opening read if you are interested. This group has been more silent this time, but they are still players.

Just a short portion.

"But in Walter Shapiro's book "One Car Caravan," on the 2004 race, Dean also suggests -- as critics charged he did in his speech last week -- that Clinton had failed to confront Republicans forcefully enough.

"What a lot of people learned from Bill Clinton is that if you accommodate and you co-opt the other party you can be successful," Dean told Shapiro this year. "And Bill Clinton was very successful. But that role doesn't work for everybody, and it's not the right time for it anymore."

[madfloridian]

52. "it's not the right time for it anymore."

""What a lot of people learned from Bill Clinton is that if you accommodate and you co-opt the other party you can be successful," Dean told Shapiro this year. "And Bill Clinton was very successful. But that role doesn't work for everybody, and it's not the right time for it anymore."

Time for the co-opting and triangulation to end.

[leaningprog]

37. the Elite DLC - the Royal Family of the Democratic Party

The real picture that is forming up is not the Ickes, Clinton, From,
etc. DLC nonsense about creating a separate Democratic party that
is a centrist Republican party and not staying with the original
Democratic party. It is larger than that.

They are getting the message across loud and clear that if you
are a lower income, emerging race, culture, or coalition, inside
the party, that your particular groups should get active, educated,
and stay loyal, until such time as you actually create a viable
candidate. At this point, your education will make you elitist,
your rising income will make you out of touch with your original
demographic group, and in the end, you will be destroyed by
necessity by the DLC operatives, the true elitists who had to
form a smaller "pure" party of "electable Democrats" to counter
the larger party. Even when a woman gets to run from this elite
group, she better not play with the money boys who put her there
or stray from the male centric DLC dogma.

We have a section of the Democratic party that sees large
swaths of their demographics as permanent and dependable
underclass support for their own uses. If a member of
these groups emerge to threaten them, they will dispatch them
back down to the worker bee sections where they are supposed
to stay.

If nothing else good comes from this primary, we have outed
a rotten, elite aristocracy that is the DLC. Somone tell
Ickes his dad was the "new deal" and he is the same old
power elite crap we have come to expect from Republicans.

DLC Royalty powered by lower class indentured voters has never
been my idea of the Democratic Party.

[madfloridian]

41. Good post. Welcome to DU.

I was reading about Ickes' dad the other day. I will find the article. Seems to be hard to reconcile the differences now.

[ginchinchili]

39. It depends on how they act and what they say.

Some of Obama's attitudes smack of elitism; to be specific, ethnocentric elitism. His "bitter" comment about rural Pennsylvanians, which can be extrapolated to mean all rural Americans, is plain insulting, and if he couldn't recognize that when he said it, then it shows an elitist attitude. Very unbecoming of a potential American president.

[madfloridian]

51. Oh, bull hockey

That's Clinton speak. Had enough of it.

[ginchinchili]

53. The truth is the truth.

You didn't do a very effective job of refuting it.

[madfloridian]

56. It does no good to refute when someone is just saying it.

When they already know it is not true...arguing is useless. Trying to convince is useless.

[erpowers]

40. Elitist Was At One Point A Good Term

According to John Judis, the author of "The Paradox of American Democracy", the word elite was not always a bad term. Judis never comes out in his book and says elitist was a good term, Judis does point out that at one point the elites who were wealthy thought it was their obligation to try to make the country,if not the world, better for everyone else. One could argue that the rise of Barry Goldwater caused a split in the elite, with some on one side(the left) claiming the elite should try to help others and some on the other side asking why the elite should have to help anyone. Barry Goldwater might have been the first politican in a long time to question whether social security was a good idea. After that point a number of elites sided with Goldwater.

Another intersting point is that some have pointed out that even though McGovern lost in that election he may have been proven right and some in his party have still ran from him. While Goldwater has yet to be proven right and may have been proven wrong, but his party still ran toward him.

[defendandprotect]

46. Some elites were forced into it -- Bill Gates, for one --- and John Rockefeller

as PR was forced to act more humanely ---
I think there are still liberal elites who try to do positive things for the nation ---
but they're sure not giving their money away.

After the Depression there seemed to be a lot of Hollywood movies trying to make the elites into
good guys --- or at least look better. You can see these old movies from time to time on TV.

[antigop]

42. Rush interviews Rove: note use of "elite"

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_081507/content/01125106.guest.html

RUSH: Does it frustrate you...? I know you said earlier just ignore the criticism. Does it frustrate you with all the attacks on him as brain dead or a frat boy, that you're the brain and this sort of thing, or do you shelve that and just go about your day?

KARL ROVE: Well, I shelve that, but I have to admit I'm amused by it because, you know, this is one of the best-read people I've ever met. This is a Harvard MBA. This is a Yale undergraduate whose major was history and whose passion is history. Many times the people I see criticizing him are, you know, sort of *ELITE*, effete snobs who can't hold a candle to this guy. What they don't like about him is that he is common sense, that he is Middle America.

RUSH: He outsmarts 'em.

KARL ROVE: Yeah, and look, in a way, they "misunderestimate" him, and he likes that.

RUSH: (Laughs.)

KARL ROVE: In fact, I think to some degree he cultivates that because it doesn't matter to him if somebody on the Upper East Side is putting their nose in the air about him. You know, he is who he is, and he's comfortable in his own skin, and he's not going to change just to win popularity with the *ELITES*.

I emphasized the usage of ELITE.

See...if you criticize Bush you are an "elite, effete snob".

[madfloridian]

49. Rove has done so much harm to our country.

I fear the Republican wing of the Democratic party took some of his tactics to use against their own.

[antigop]

50. I think so. n/t

[Capn Sunshine]

43. Just an attaboy for a GREAT Journal

I thought I'd let you know that since you don't have time to post there any more, I put it up at my website as well.

[madfloridian]

47. I appreciate kind words from you, Capn.

but I think I detected a subtle dig?:-) You know it's deeper and more involved than that.

Any kind words from you mean a lot, and I think you know that. Thank you for linking.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

44. Agreed.

[defendandprotect]

45. Right...how does HRC avg $18 million per year call Obama "elitist" . . . ???

Or looking at the redistribution of wealth claim there is no warfare on the middle class and poor?

[ginchinchili]

54. It's not the amount of money one has that determines if one is elitist.

It's about attitude. Obama made it clear that he looks down on white working class Americans who happen not to support him. He thinks of them as little-minded, xenophobes who "cling" to their religion and guns and, implicitly, their racism because they fear change. Good luck in getting this guy elected President of the United States. Obama and his "typical white woman" grandmother. Give me a break.

[Why Syzygy]

55. Elite = Left Wing Loon

[madfloridian]

59. Yeh, well, that is pretty much what they mean.

:hi: