Overcoming The Spite Vote
I just want to start off by agreeing with Rick that the notion that there's a "liberal elite" that condescends to poor conservatives is a hoary old myth clung to by the true conservative elite---like George Will---to convince a fraction of the white working and middle classes to vote out of spite. If anything, I think the tide has turned, and most condescension goes the other way, with conservatives preening about how they own morality, values, and patriotism, apparently unaware that liberals have morals, values, and patriotism.
Still, I think there's little doubt that the Franklin/Orthogonian split he details in Nixonland still shapes the political landscape in frustrating and, as I'm about to argue, nearly impossible to escape ways. Of course, once you bring this up, there's always going to be someone in comments who says that you can predict voting behavior pretty much entirely by family background, race, and class status, and that's true to a large extent. But with one exception, and we all know it anecdotally to be true: The largely white middle class frustratingly and unpredictably can go either way, liberal or conservative. Look at this chart of income levels coming out of the polls in 2006.
In that cluster in the middle, you really see a divide, and while other factors no doubt feed into it, I think Rick really nailed something important when he described the Franklin/Orthogonian divide that Nixon and then Reagan and every conservative after has exploited to win over that mercurial middle class.
As a member of the class in question who lives in a blue city in a red state, I can tell you that what makes someone a liberal or a conservative is a constant source of discussion and mystery to people. One overheard conversation: A woman from an MBA program, joking about how the finance people and the marketing people were at odds during an election. And that most of you can probably guess which side went for which team tells me that we aren't completely unaware as a nation how this game goes. I can safely assume that pretty much anyone I meet of my age and income level in Austin is a Democrat, but that assumption is not a safe one should I venture into other parts of the state. A lot of people I know---including myself---come from "mixed" families, which goes to show that demographic predictions fall apart in this class. My oldest male cousin and I are big liberals, and my stepbrother and uncle close to my age are firebreathing conservatives, and a scattershot of female relatives mostly vote Republican but almost shamefacedly admit to having liberal social values. Why so much difference in a group that's demographically the same?
Some of us are Franklins and some of us are Orthogonians is why---a split that's hard to define but easily grasped by the players of this game. And while the condescension might be equally distributed at this point in time, I fear that conservatives still have a useful tool in running around telling Orthogonians, "They think they're better than you." It's why I think that conservatives tarring Obama with the "elitist" slur even as he runs against someone far wealthier than him may work.
Maybe not. In a lot of ways, the struggle over "Intelligent Design" in the schools is the iconic Franklin/Orthogonian clash. Every time it flares up, the income levels and races of the participants are similar---after all, their kids all go to the same schools. The fact that the liberals are so obviously right on this issue tends to work against us, though. And this is true even when the liberal factions put ministers at the forefront of the campaign and carefully cover their asses so as not to condescend to believers. Because creationism is just wrong, it has the underdog advantage. That's why ID proponents hide behind "teach the controversy"---sure, they're wrong, but can't you feel sorry for them being the put-upon people with their wrong beliefs always being upstaged by the smarty pants who think they're so right just because they are?
The same battle field is drawn in the abstinence-only "education" debate. Everyone knows that it doesn't work, because we all had sex before marriage and we know our kids are going to have sex before marriage, and we approve of contraception and disapprove of STD transmission. It was railroaded through because of a mix of pitiful nostalgia for Orthogonian "values" and the sense that the classroom was a booby prize, since the sexual culture owns everything else.
As Rick demonstrates, Nixon was really good at playing this game. That said, where we see liberals winning on these battlegrounds is sheer pragmatism. Even conservatives are beginning to realize they don't want their kids flunking college level science or catching an STD just because someone wanted to spite those smarty-pants liberals. We see this loop in a lot of areas---liberals are condemned for smarty-pants behavior simply by being in the right, even if we do it without a hint of smarty-pants attitude. Conservative policies gain steam out of spite. When everything goes to hell, liberals are quietly allowed to have been right, so long as we don't gloat about it and perhaps self-flagellate a little for being smart enough to get it right in the first place.
Example #1: The Iraq War.
My question is: How do we shut down this loop? Merely agreeing collectively to suck down gallons of humility Gatorade every day isn't doing it, because you can still smell arrogance on someone who has the advantage of being in the right. Obama is going to get nailed by this in the election. Our main hope is that the nation is fed up enough with the way Republicans have torn up our country that the spite vote is mediated.
Comments (50)
Frankly, I can't discern much difference between the partisans. They each have their stereotyped images of the other and repeat them endlessly, like trained monkeys, as if it was received wisdom from on high.
Not that the stereotypes don't have a great deal of truth to them. They do.
May 27, 2008 1:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Axelrod's Nixonland tactics have filled people with more than resentment.
They will vote McCCain to prevent another Nixon from entering the white house.
May 27, 2008 4:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Right.
Nobody likes the girl in the front row with her hand up all the time.
Amanda? Is that you?
May 27, 2008 2:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Marcotte is more like the girl who sits in the front row because she has a crush on the professor and raises her hand every oppurtunity to chit-chat. Thrilling for her, incredibly tedious for everyone else. Or maybe she's more like the female Jiminy Glick of blogs.
Marcotte, it's called a "wedge issue." You don't need to detail every one just because you're newly familiar with the concept.
I look forward to Marcotte's further brilliant insights, such as her upcoming series on water being, in fact, known to have been, and some would argue, continuing to be, on occasion when the proper circumstances present themselves, wet. Or her treatise on the future of politics, and how it won't be similar to how a small bean filled sac could be employed in an informal sport requiring foot-eye coordination which probably wouldn't encourage great competitiveness, roughness or physical contact generally.
May 27, 2008 7:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
PS, other classic examples of "wedge issues" would be the divide between Protestants and Catholics, or religious people and secular people, the tensions being regularly exploited by idiots and provocateurs to inflame hostilities on all sides.
Some examples of idiots exploiting wedge issues:
One idiot named John Hagee said the Catholic church was the "great whore of Babylon" in order to pander to his audience and show how edgy his pro-Protestant anti-Catholicism is, by making sensational and inflammatory comments.
Another idiot, this time a feminist blogger trying far too hard to prove how edgy she was, said "Q: What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit? A: You’d have to justify your misogyny with another ancient mythology."
May 27, 2008 8:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Before any discussion/argument/name-calling sessions take place between so-called liberals and so-called conservatives, terms have to be defined.
Political liberal, social liberal, economic liberal: Political conservative, social conservative, economic conservative. What happens when using this approach is interesting as most people end up being a mix of conservative and liberal.
(Great fun when people who thought themselves dyed-in-the-wool conservatives find they're actually liberals in one or more categories.)
May 27, 2008 2:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think you miss the point when you too readily assume that Franklins tend to be 'right' on the issues, whereas Orthogonians are necessarily resentment-fueled dupes who always back the culturally conservative position.
Franklins are the 'well-bred' crowd, or in today's (slightly) more meritocratic environment, the crowd that has has degrees from top schools (and are only mostly well-bred). The thing is, Franklins are wrong all the time. Look at the New Republic, one of the most Franklin of publications, which seemingly has a recruitment office set up at Harvard College. The New Republic could not have been more wrong about the Iraq war - the same could be said for much of the pundit class (predominantly Ivy-league grads). Perlstein too savages the idiocy of the pundocracy in Nixonland.
The problem isn't liberal arrogance anymore - the problem is that we are unable to speak to certain voters from their cultural vantage point. And let's face it, we are not going to win over every white working class voter - some of them just plain don't cotton to black people and/or Muslims, and sure as shit aren't going to criticize America's latest middle-eastern adventure. The actual percentage of Americans who are motivated primarily by racism and/or jingoism is probably relatively small, and not likely to vote Democrat anyhow. If liberals want to broaden their appeal to a real durable majority, however, we better learn to speak to and propose solutions for the fears resultant from globalization and immigration.
May 27, 2008 2:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nobody likes the girl in the front row with her hand up all the time.
Amanda? Is that you?
Yeah, and interestingly, I think that's taken for arrogance a lot of the time when it's not. Maybe I have skewed views on this. A friend recently asked me if I thought he was arrogant, and I was like, "No, you're confident, because I think arrogance is a quality someone has that's inherently rude and exclusive." He's a very kind, very inclusive person who always has a ready compliment. But some people simply are put off by confidence or even just intelligence. Hell, ask someone who's good looking---no matter how kind or generous or humble, they attract haters.
lxtx, I think you're missing what I'm saying. How can Franklins be "well-bred" and still from the same socioeconomic backgrounds as Orthogonians? Franklins often in our culture are even not that well-bred. How come the same families right in that middle income bracket push out both groups? How is it that I'm a Franklin but my stepbrother, who is going to medical school and will probably always make more money than me, is a "lowly" Orthogonian? It doesn't seem possible, and yet there it is. I'm the "elite", but poorer, one. Is it just taste? I can't think that it is.
May 27, 2008 2:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Think of it in terms of gambling strategies.
You have the choice (somewhere in your life) to throw your sympathy towards the Franklins or the Orthogonians. A million little things impinge on your decision making process. Eventually you decide one way or the other. Socio-economic factors are a major impingement-factor but not the only one. What people are gambling on in decision theory is what will be to their best advantage whether it is economic advantage or the more subtle advantage of belonging to a group that resonates with your own preferences/prejudices. And that is not the only things that play a role in what you ultimately decide. Your environment Your spouse, the dog, an event, whatever all can make a difference.
But once you make the decision you start to gravitate towards it in this way: you start defending the position against critics by devising ways to counter the critics. You start to become more and more entrenched in your decision. So entrenched in so many many ways that you are willing to forego reason and self interest merely to maintain that position. It acquires a life of its own. You have evolved from the purely rational individual to an invested one.
That working class people generally tend to gravitate towards the Orthogonian position and liberal intellectual elites towards the Franklin side is interesting in itself as a STATISTICAL PHENOMENON. The idea that you can slice the groupings into neat categories such as economic status is wrong. For political reasons we do slice it that way because winning elections is a statistical process.
One more point. The less educated working class winds up making the decision in a much less deliberative way than the more educated type. But that's what education will do for you. Still there are plenty of well-educated people who ultimately adopt the Orthogonian ethos if only because it suits their careers or some such pedestrian reason. But one thing is certain, given enough time they all become entrenched and invested in their views.
May 27, 2008 6:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
One thing I think about the pundit class being wrong, is a lot of the time lately they are wrong in an attempt to pander to an audience that the right wing has told them is tuning them out because they're such smarty smart liberals. The widespread support of the war you mention as a Franklin obsession was---in an effort NOT to be the smarty smart pants. We've been told so long that Orthogonians are morally and patriotically superior to Franklins that a lot of people who are supposedly in the "liberal elite" are eager to show their patriotic bona fides by jumping on obviously bad ideas like the war. Those of us who were against it from the beginning are the "real" snobs who need to be quiet and not gloat about it.
May 27, 2008 3:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow! According to that chart, more than half of Democratic voters can hardly afford a latte, not to mention a limousine!
May 27, 2008 3:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Amanda,
I said:
For example, I could be understood as a Franklin, because I went to a pretty good school, and will soon be working towards a PhD at better school, but my brother (who never went to college) and sister (who went to a much less prestigious school) could not be Franklins. I also wouldn't count them as Orthogonians, since neither are strivers, and don't hold any hostility towards cultural/educational elite. None of us are 'well-bred' (a point that I've noticed with increasing frequency as few of my classmates descend from sharecroppers and hustlers (my respective grandfathers).
The public cannot be split easily between Franklins and Orthogonians, and if I'm reading Nixonland correctly, Perlstein doesn't try. Franklin is a metaphor for those who were (mostly) well-bred, (mostly) well-off, and (mostly) well-educated. They were those who mostly ran the country, the 'vital center' that believed in the liberal progress of humankind, and also believed in reasoned dialog and accommodation with opponents. Leftist radicals, people like Tom Hayden, were neither Franklin nor Orthogonian. That the New Left warred against liberals and Franlins more than conservatives and their Orthogonian allies was, with the benefit of hindsight, a tragedy.
There is certainly a Franklin and mainstream liberal impulse to acquire 'authenticity' by knocking the "effete corps of impudent snobs" and embracing anti cultural/educational elite opinions on various issues. I would be very surprised to learn, however, that the New Republic cadre was primarily motived by a desire to shed their elite image and embrace jingoism in an effort to appear as loyal Americans. They supported the war because they are "serious people" and serious people love hawkish statecraft and especially love wars that purport to accomplish some higher aims (democratization and national interest).
May 27, 2008 3:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I read it a little different. I got the impression that Perlstein is saying that the two groups blend more than they'd like to admit, which is probably why Nixon himself was so paranoid since he bought into it so much. But if anything, the differences have been calcifying since that era, I think fed by a Republican machine that breeds paranoia by making innocent things like latte-drinking or Volvo-driving seem like sins of arrogance, and fetishizing similarly priced SUVs as the car of True Americans.
May 27, 2008 3:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
One point of clarification - the term "Franklin" has limited use when trying to make sense of the anti cultural/educational elite sentiments that typify much of American political discourse. If I understand Perlstein's project correctly, the utility of the term Franklin is historically circumscribed. That is, much of the influential educational/cultural elite of 1960s America could be understood as a class that shared certain political and cultural sensibilities, and also were mostly well-bred and went to top schools. Much of today's pundit class could similarly be considered Franklins.
Today's larger body of cultural/educational elite, however, are much more heterogeneous than their 1960s counterparts. Many of the baby boomer student radicals now occupy privileged positions in the academy, legal profession, artistic world, philanthropic community, and other creative class occupations. Many of these folks are different in kind from their elite forbearers because they do not fetishize rationality or bipartisanship, and do not have the same shared class experiences that 1960s Franklins had. Moreover, they defined themselves as radicals in their youth, which necessarily placed them at (ideological if not literal) warfare with the Franklin oligarchs. We may bump into one another at the Whole Foods check out line, but we shouldn't make to much of our shared love of San Pellegrino and organic produce.
May 27, 2008 4:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
This gets closer to the mark. I am only part way through the book, but I did live through the period. It seems to me that the Franklins are as you characterize them at the outset in the post-War period, but the '60s changed things, and it was a tragedy the Left fought them as much as Nixon. Today we have much more than the traditional Franklins as liberals, including the new creative class. The Orthogonians don't seem to me to have changed as much, although that may just be my limited perspective. But there are fewer of them, and young people are creating their own new categories. Nixonland will begin to end if Obama wins and we can look forward to some new categories.
May 27, 2008 6:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
The "elitist" smear is just a code word used to cover anti-intellectualism. There are other similar words which show that this is so, for example being a graduate of Harvard or Yale. (Bush gets a pass, because he was a legacy and therefore not an intellectual).
In an earlier age we had "pointed heads" and "egg heads" which doomed Stevenson.
Parents object when schools spend money on gifted and talented programs because they restrict entry and are "elitist". The irony is that the public demands an elitist, meritocracy when it comes to sports. The same parents don't complain about the rigid filtering used to pick players for the football or basketball teams. In fact inborn natural characteristics like extreme height are thought to be acceptable. Imagine trying to cap the height of basketball players so that average people had the same chances. Height is allowed to work for you, but IQ, not so much.
The attempt to portray themselves as regular Joe's is one of the fictions of modern campaigning. Every major office has someone who is better educated, richer and belongs to the "elite" of the country than average.
The amazing thing is how the Ivy League conservatives can get away with calling liberals elitist. There have never been bigger snobs than George Will or Bill Buckley.
Perhaps if we really had some average income and education people in congress we would see some progressive change. This won't happen until the electoral process is reformed. Only those with money and rich backers can afford to run. He who pays the piper gets to pick the tune.
May 27, 2008 4:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
GWB was defeated in his first Congressional race in Texas. His Democratic opponent savaged him for being an East Coast elitist interloper. GWB being a legacy has nothing to do with the 'pass' he gets for being an elitist - he gets the pass because he and his imagine makers spent decades cultivating a certain cowboy image that the media and public bought.
May 27, 2008 4:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
uh, "imagine" = "image"
May 27, 2008 4:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
First, in response to ixtx: I have to confess that I'm going on reviews at this point, rather than a careful reading of Rick's book itself. But I also got the impression that Rick was using "Franklin" to describe an older sort of effortless old-money prestige, rather than the "knowledge workers" who have become so central to the Democratic party.
I think Amanda's point about finance vs. marketing is extremely telling. A lot of today's political divisions are related to the tension between two different kinds of power and status.
a) straightforward wealth vs.
b) educational credentials and so-called "cultural capital"
People in finance tend to be proud of the first; people in marketing, or advertising, or research, tend to be proud of the second.
So, is the right fueled by anti-intellectualism? Sure. But it's a mistake to think that this resentment doesn't count, for some people, as genuine resistance to a genuine mode of elitism. "Knowledge work" is so central to our economy, and educational prestige has become such an important kind of personal capital, that a lot of class consciousness really is shaped by education rather than by wealth.
Again, to return to ixtx's point -- this may not be quite the same thing as Rick's Franklin/Orthogonian divide. In which case, perhaps we're not still living in Nixonland?
May 27, 2008 4:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Republicans and conservatives very much want us to remain in Nixonland. The 'positive polarization' articulated by Pat Buchanan gave them a governing majority, but now the coalition of cultural conservatives and upper class individuals is fracturing.
Radicals too loved Nixonland. But since there are so few radicals left, politically they don't matter.
Progressives hate Nixonland. This, we share with the Franklins. Our desires to build a better world for all requires bringing people of different classes and viewpoints together, which is difficult under Nixonland conditions. Obama's campaign is largely a repudiation of Nixonland - as are the stated political preferences of most millennials.
I think that we are living in the late stages of Nixonland (which really sounds too much like the 'late stages of capitalism' that socialists have articulated for 150 years, so maybe I'm wrong). The composition of our elite classes is quite different than it was 40 years ago, and the urgency of cultural conflict is simply less evident than it used to be. Some conservatives, especially religious ones, still speak about the apocalyptic consequences of [insert liberal program or cultural practice here], but the frequency of such jeremiads has diminished and lost public support. I think that an invigorated creative class propelling Obama to the presidency (with the cooperation of many working class folks too) could well spell the doom of Nixonland.
One thing Perlstein does well, better than most historians, is to highlight the shifting winds, the currents of thought, feelings, resentments, etc... and how these currents portend structural political change. Current public opinion polling, but more importantly, the masses of excited progressives, suggest a progressive realignment outside of the bounds of Nixonland.
May 27, 2008 4:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Knock on wood," and/or "amen," depending on your cultural preferences.
May 27, 2008 5:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not just Republicans, but wedge issue advocates like EJ Graff too. There are wedge issue advocates on both sides who try and coral voters into identity politics.
May 28, 2008 11:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting distinction, and well put. There's a lot of benefits of being a creative/knowledge Franklin, as it were, even if it doesn't necessarily pay better than more old school professions. It's sexier and hipper and is assumed to come with all these social benefits.
I wouldn't even say that there's necessarily an intellectualism gap. If you're a creator of "lowbrow" entertainments---you work in the TV industry, for instance---you're still one of the socially elite Franklins that are demonized as "latte liberals".
May 27, 2008 8:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I use the term "latte liberal" to refer to a particular type which gravitates towards a certain condescension towards the so-called Orthogonian working Joe. They populate this blog at all levels.
Making fun of the poorly educated working man/woman is UNETHICAL and the latte liberals who indulge in it are no better than right wing elitists they presume to oppose.
May 27, 2008 10:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm trying to read the messages in the photograph you selected, Amanda. It seems a very complicated
mix to me. I can't tell if that's an upper-class or a very pedestrian (say, T.J. Max) scarf, or whether the appearance of your hairline is an effect of charming indifference or the result of slaving over a treatise or at a Junior League book drive. And I can't discern whether your expression exudes a wealth of savoir faire or if maybe you just work at the Starbucks up the street from me. But I like that you worked the word 'fetishizing' in there.
May 27, 2008 4:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's Amanda at the 1996 Cotillion Idlewild -- a rebel through and through!
May 27, 2008 8:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ellen!
May 27, 2008 10:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's a retro headband bought off a local designer for $10, and in the larger photo I got that from, I'm holding up a Dolly Parton record I bought for $2 at a record convention. In other words, it's pure, unvarnished hipster behavior. I'm not apologetic for it. Hipsters get bashed by everyone, including and especially other hipsters, and I finally realized it was low rent haterade to do that. Record collecting, vintage-wearing hipsters are, as a population, pretty harmless and often, in my experience, big hearted and big tippers.
May 27, 2008 9:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
By the way, for the humorless, I was playing along with the joke in this comment. :)
May 27, 2008 9:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bingo!
Latte liberal written all over you. It is your type that loses us the Orthogonian vote.
So what if she was JUST a lady that works at Starbucks how is that relevant at all ?. And to Michael if he is tracking this (from another thread) so what If offensivetoyou worked as a lifeguard for 30 years. You just don't get it. It is your attitude more than anything else that keeps churning out Orthogoinian resentment where there should be solidarity.
I'd rather talk to a Starbuck lady than a prick like yourself any day.
May 27, 2008 10:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, Andrew, I don't care if anyone drinks latte or not, except for my wife - who drinks 'way too much, if you ask me. You might want to see if you can get your panties out of that knot and lighten up a little, because my post was an equal opportunity exercise in jocularity. Google 'Junior League'. And it wasn't really aimed at Amanda or Junior Leaguers or hipsters or barristas so much as it was at this silly thread which would have no posts at all if some people didn't think they actually could categorize human beings this way.
And by the way, I haven't cared for the condescending way I've been treated by the people who work at Starbucks on the three occasions I've patronized the place - which serves decidedly inferior coffee as anyone who truely knows coffee, knows, and I don't like being called a 'prick' by irrascible old farts.
May 27, 2008 11:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
And to Michael . . . . Andrew Strat
Who the hell is Michael?
May 28, 2008 2:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's Michael Burue (probably got the spelling wrong). But if you are asking "Who the fuck is Michael Buere" as in "what relevance does he have?" I would honestly have to say that I'm not quite sure. We share a passion for Disability Studies.
May 28, 2008 11:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ah, Michael Bérubé avec deux accents aigus.
May 29, 2008 12:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wittgenstein (in his Philosophical Investigations) famously talked about "language games" and how these "language games" can be viewed as "ways of life".
In my response to you I used the F word, which is not the appropiate term here.
Somewhere above I used the term "Pr**k" to the same effect.
But being multilingual is an advantage. I can easily inhabit the Orthogonian and the Franklenian (?) way of life at the same time. I understand them both.
Sad to say, many liberal intellectuals can't do that. They are hermetically sealed in their own little world from whence they dispense advice or vitriol to others. They see it as an above-looking-down affair, when in fact it is a matter of incommensurable Weltanschaungen.
My advice to Amanda is to "go native" and learn the "Orthogonian" language. It will perhaps help you understand better. i.e. Drop the alienation.
May 29, 2008 3:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
I guess buried in my comment somewhere there may be an implicit answer to Amanda's question, which is that we shouldn't think of it as a "spite" vote -- but as an aspect of American diversity that we liberals haven't been very good at acknowledging.
One aspect of Barack's rhetoric I like is that he very rarely postures as the technocratic expert who knows how to solve problems for the electorate. Instead he says, "we can all come together to solve these problems -- it's not me, it's us." I think that's a good note for us to strike if we want to reach people who don't think of themselves as technocratic experts.
May 27, 2008 4:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I'm a Franklin but my stepbrother, who is going to medical school and will probably always make more money than me, is a "lowly" Orthogonian? It doesn't seem possible, and yet there it is. I'm the "elite", but poorer, one. Is it just taste? I can't think that it is."
You're an "elite" because you've constructed a little public pedestal for yourself, from which you claim the right to speak, and not merely for yourself, but for others. I consider myself a liberal, from lack of better categories from which to draw at this point in our national history, but you don't speak for me.
By the way, when I read the first comment I was pretty sure that person called you "a trained monkey" due to the hackneyed nature of your post.
May 27, 2008 5:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
*sigh* It's this kind of haterade that the politics of resentment sown by the right have created. Anyone could see that I'm not arguing that I'm superior or anything like that. My point is that it's almost arbitrary. I'm a writer, so I'm a "liberal elite". My stepbrother will be a doctor and no doubt will make a lot more than me, but he's salt of the earth? No, of course not.
"Liberal elitism" is arbitrary to a large degree, and I openly reject the idea that I or anyone should apologize for making an honest living. But you headlong took the bait. Why? Nothing I could do or say---no amount of humility I could swallow---would make you not take the bait of hating me for having a certain kind of middle class job not really that different than others. Why?
May 27, 2008 9:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is just a silly argument. The world is full of stupid people - some are book stupid, some are logic stupid, some are socially stupid. We are all stupid in some ways and superior in some ways.
I am of the opinion that the 'government is problem' crowd has the ultimate goal of making everyone concerned about trivia (just like dictators keep large numbers of their populations on the edge of starvation so they won't be able to foment revolution.)
My whole life some people have told me I was a snob because I use 'big words.' I like language and like to be precise (and here comes the elitist part I guess) some people find that threatening.
May 27, 2008 7:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Uh, if I'm on the right side of the issues, why should I be humble about it?
I mean, there's a certain humility that's good to have since we're never 100% right about anything but...
I'm never going to apologize for having the right views on evolution, sex education and same sex marriage. Let the wrong people apologize to me.
May 27, 2008 9:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Being right on an issue does not in itself make you a virtuous man just as being wrong on an issue does not in itself deserve you derision and condescension.
May 28, 2008 11:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
"deserve you" is a grammatical stretch, I admit.
May 29, 2008 3:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
You start by referring to the liberal and conservative elite, and then just switch to liberals and conservatives in general. So you seem to be making two arguments.
I can't speak for the liberal elite, but when a particular segment of society supports the liberal elite, and that segment is seen as being condescending then, fairly or not, many people often identify the condescension with the liberal elite (Who says everything has to be trickle down? This is my little bubble-up theory of condescension).
For example, last summer some too-clever-by-half supporter of Obama created this Spoof of the Macintosh 1984 ad. The subtext wasn't all that sub: mindless drones support Clinton, but they'll be saved by their self-appointed enlightened betters. When I first saw it, one of my first thoughts was Oh God, here comes the self-righteous brigade again, to lecture us about how we fail to live up to their Puritanical ideals.
Just one little bit of data, but a journey of 1000 miles, as they say...
As to liberals in general not being condescending, well...all I can say is that every day posters at TPM prove that wrong.
May 27, 2008 10:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
I guess it's the savoir faire!
I didn't know a thing about you, but your response suggested as much...and sent me scurrying to Google. Interesting life so far, huh? Savoir faire, or die! Leroy says keep on rockin' girl.
May 27, 2008 10:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
There's not going to be a spite vote from the Right. It will come from the Left. It will come from embittered Hillary supporters who already agree that the Iraq war was a huge blunder, but who have decided that Hillary is the only candidate worthy of getting us out (even though she helped to get us in). They have decided that without Hillary, we may as well all give up and burn in Hell for ever and ever because if Hillary can't be president, life just isn't worth living. Oh, woe is us!
They'll get over it. They're a bunch of big fat babies, but they're not stupid.
The spite vote on the Right will be directed squarely at John McCain.
May 28, 2008 10:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, don't we all long for the maturity and civility and rationalism that is clearly the hallmark of the above Obama supporter. ;^}
May 28, 2008 10:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Condescension among liberals is alive and well, and is directed by Democrats at Republicans and Democrats alike. Reread your article if you have any doubts.
May 28, 2008 2:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have a little different take on the "liberal elite". I dont' find them so much in the media as elsewhere. I find the liberal elite or elitists often (not always) express themselves in ways that appear to be condescending and disdainful to those who are not like (or as they seem to think not as "good" as) themselves, but especially working class and/or not highly educated people of all races and genders. The liberal elitists are not necessarily in the media, in fact, I find more often that you simply meet them in political and other circles. Most liberal "elitists" long ago left the corporate media or were driven out and the rest beyond corporate media don't really matter because they are not seen or read by many people in comparison.
The disdain many liberals have for those who are not "professionals" or those who are not well educated is very palpable. I have found over the years and still find many liberals do disdain working people and those in the lower classes even while maintaining some sense of "obligation" to them in terms of public policy. In essence, the attitude that many liberals bring to nearly everything is so haughty and self-important that it's difficult to stomach whether one is a member of a group these folks find beneath them like working people or those of us who are also highly educated professionals who don't think of ourselves as any better or worse than anyone else and who can actually relate to people who aren't in the same socioeconomic demographic groups on any meaningful basis. Because of this repellant posture of some liberals, conservatives have been able to take the loathing of this attitude by others and twist it to their own ends quite effectively. It could easily be solved by liberals simply showing some respect for the dignity of average people who may not have been as fortunate as the liberal elitists in terms of education, etc... People don't like to be looked down upon. It's that simple. Far too often, liberals come off that way to others.
May 29, 2008 4:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Amanda writes:
I was reading an old article about Kevin Phillips this morning that emphasized his sense of demographic determinism, which can perhaps be contrasted with Amanda's musings. The article opens with a description of him watching the 1966 electoral map, noting that California districts that had experienced an influx of new arrivals from the Dust Bowl voted the same as districts in OK, electing Republicans for the first time ever. Then it goes on to say:
I'm inclined to think (or at least hope) that Amanda is right and Phillips is wrong on this. But I can't say that my experience plays that out - I'm surrounded by people of similar beliefs, and my voting patterns are (I think) largely those of my grandparents. Any thoughts on whether politics is demographically determined or not? Or have things changed from 1968 to 2008?
May 29, 2008 3:47 PM | Reply | Permalink