I encourage you to read Peter Berkowitz’s post on the failure of American elites to understand populism at RealClearPolitics. Here’s a snippet:
The accusation that Trump’s victory represented the recrudescence of a deep-seated American racism was equally scurrilous and equally implausible. Racists still exist in America and some felt emboldened by Trump to purvey their hatred. But there is no reason to suppose that if a white, male, progressive Democrat had governed in the manner of Trump’s predecessor that popular frustration would have been less robust. President Obama rammed through Congress a fundamental transformation of health care in defiance of popular will. He usurped Congress’s lawmaking powers by issuing executive orders that appropriated funds to sustain the Affordable Care Act, that imposed extensive environmental regulations, and that altered the legal status of illegal aliens. He presided over an Internal Revenue Service that methodically impeded his political opponents’ participation in the democratic process. He downplayed or dismissed voters’ anxieties about jobs, trade, and immigration while adopting measures that exacerbated them. Abroad, he coddled adversaries and alienated allies. The notion that ordinary Americans are inveterate racists because they rejected the third term for Obama governance that Hillary Clinton represented exhibits the elites’ own bigotry.
I think one of the problems is that the elite just aren’t that elite any more. When the umpteen great-grandparents of our elite came over on the Mayflower, they had old money, and no one in their families can remember when any male family member hadn’t attended Harvard, it’s one thing. It’s hard for me to think of a farmer’s son, a pharmacist’s daughter, or a guy whose grandfather emigrated to the U. S. just before WWII and pushed a pushcart on Maxwell Street as elite and, regardless of their wealth or the institution from which they matriculated, it should be hard for them, too.
I wonder if they ever have really been elite, or that is something people project on to them.
Berkowitz’ snippet is really, and perhaps more accurately, just a Cliffs Notes on why Obama was a lawless, unwise and generally lousy person and President. It’s serves as a shattering of the racism excuse. And it exposes the cult of personality and tremendous power of media to create and perpetuate an image rather than a a debunking of elite status.
More currently, we see in multiple venues arrogance, entitlement and abuse of power: slush funds for sex hush money, “who elected them,” secret buttons to lock the doors, or the old casting couches, on secret offices to trap and take advantage of would be up and comers. This is brute thugishness, not elitism. Take a look at this picture of my unit honey is different from looking down ones nose and announcing ” I am an intellectual, and your better.”
“Elite” is perhaps just a convenient term to describe those who have accumulated power, and are narcissistic enough to tell you how wonderful they are and exercise it. While populism is just a throttling mechanism for those less ambitious or interested in social climbing and accumulation of power who wake up from time to time and say “enough.”
Ice once took a dig at me, in effect saying “you never made it really big, you should be worth $100mm (or a billion?)”. It brought a smile to my face. To what end? Another house? Another two thousand sq ft to sit empty? A private plane? And for that I would do not what I wanted to do for a living. Not what suited me best. Perhaps not deal with people as I thought most honorable. No thanks. We are currently witnessing what happens to people who fly too close to the sun.
Yeah, sixty years ago the State Department was basically a club for Ivy graduates and the Ivies admitted primarily legacies. And not as many Americans travelled abroad as is presently the case.
The combination of increased specialization, greater democratization, and more global tourism and trade has made the foreign service a lot less special than it used to be.
Just as one tiny example 75 years ago my dad was unable to pass the foreign service examination. He was a very smart and well-educated guy but he hadn’t attended an Ivy League school. 50 years ago I passed the foreign service examination with flying colors. The exam had been dumbed down a bit and I had a more cosmopolitan education than my dad had.
“President Obama rammed through Congress a fundamental transformation of health care in defiance of popular will. ”
Rammed? They took well over a year. The recent GOP attempt to push through a change in health care in a month or so, without even their own people seeing what was in it fits that much better.
Defiance of popular will? Nope. A majority of the popular and electoral vote went to Obama who campaigned on health reform, and the final product was not that much different than what was campaigned on.
The IRS again? Pretty well proven by now that Obama had nothing to do with that, and now that the AG report is finalized we know that they really did use the same metrics on left leaning groups.
Coddled enemies and alienated allies? LOL
I think that what this article proves is that someone like Berkowitz can regurgitate old GOP conspiracy theory, and people like Drew will fall in line.
(The elites are claiming that Hillary was rejected because of racism? Really? I don’t doubt that you can one or two people making such a claim, just like you can find some conservatives claiming all gay people should be stoned to death, but this is not even remotely a widely held belief.)
To Dave’s broader point, the old money class is mostly gone. I don’t know if the new elites are really that much worse, or if we just decided that we weren’t going to follow them blindly anymore. In this modern era we get to very publicly see all of the weaknesses and problems of the elites, so they just aren’t revered, and won’t be, as they were in the past. Also, there has been a long term media campaign to reject expertise and knowledge.
Steve
They’re still there. They’re just maintaining a lower profile now.
Is that what the IG’s report said? (I assume you meant IG). Or is that what the Senate Democratic caucus’s report said? Here’s a direct quote from the IG’s report:
My recollection is that a few progressive groups had been the objects of improper scrutiny and the mainstream media and Congressional Democrats proclaimed that proof of equal treatment across parties and ideologies but the actual facts were that far more Tea Party and pro-Israel groups received improper scrutiny.
Regardless, the view that I articulated here, that the IRS scandal was a genuine scandal, was fully vindicated whether or not the president was implicated directly.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-irs-target-liberal-groups-20171004-story.html
Targeting of groups by name rather than on evidence if improper or illegal activity was common.
Steve
Read the article you linked to, steve. It says that the right-leaning organizations that were targeted outnumbered left-leaning organizations 2:1.
Well, I like Obama personally and thought he has a good personal character, but I thought his tone was too lecturing and professorial.
I didn’t agree with a lot of his policies and I strongly disagreed with his use and expansion of Executive Power. I voted for him in 2008, mostly to avoid the McCain Foreign Policy Crazy Train, but didn’t vote for him in 2012 (third party that year).
Re: State. My understanding is that it used to be a place to park those Ivies with gentlemens C records, or donors. Maybe that was Berkowitzs focus. I was referring to “elites” more broadly.
As they say, YMMV. Obama is not a nice guy. It’s all image.
As for the defense of the IRS. Thanks for the laugh, steve.