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Quote of the Day: Progressive Elites Know Best!
From a June 6 WSJ op-ed by William McGurn titled “Why Elites Hate”:
Here it helps to remember the tail end of Mr. Obama’s snipe about guns and religion: it was a crack about voters clinging to “antipathy toward people who aren’t like them.” Sounds like a pretty accurate indictment of contemporary American liberalism, judging by all these articles begging progressives to be a little more broad-minded.
So good luck with the idea that the Democratic Party can restore its relationship with Middle America without addressing the identity politics that fuels it. Especially when it starts from the premise that the Americans they are condescending to will remain too stupid to figure it out.
I don’t think the progressives have it in them to admit their elitism, and even more, that they will ever let it go. After all, they know better than anyone who isn’t progressive and what is needed in the world! They’ve condescended to almost everyone: blacks, conservatives, and poor people. We can hope they pay the price—again—the next time elections roll around.
Published in Politics
Hoping is never enough. We need good candidates and we need the Republicans to act on their promises in order to help push the Progressives over the edge.
This is one more entry in the Quote of the Day Series. This particular entry helps to show our range. We have had quotes from the days of the Roman Republic, and we have quotes, like this one, from earlier this month. If you would like to chip in and share one of your old favorite quotes or just something you have seen recently, our July sign-up sheet is here. At this moment, the Fourth of July is still open. Better snatch it fast, my friends. ;)
A normal person believes a statement because the statement itself is true, regardless of who uttered it. An elitist believes a statement is true because he was the one who uttered it. That means that whatever he says must be the truth, based on the fact that he says it. In turn, that means that it’s impossible to get him to change his mind, because that would force him to admit his status does not protect him from error.
Once you’ve placed your intellectual trust in the class of people who bear all the outward signs of intellectual thoroughness (academic credentials,
groupthinkpeer review, etc.) then you no longer bother to examine the content of what they approve. And at that point, you’re beyond the reach of reason. Content no longer matters.I agree. But we’ll also need all the help we can get, because we may not get what we need from Republicans.
Unfortunately this can apply to the Left and the Right, both. Frankly I’m not sure who to trust anymore. Thanks, KC.
Remember, in peer review, nobody knows you’re a dog.
I think the average American is paying a lot more attention these days than the left, or the sleepy Republican right, whose certain members should get out of the way if they aren’t going to represent the people, think they are. Love those polls!! Keep taking polls!
I just don’t know anymore. I just don’t know. I have highly intelligent family members and friends who should have figured this all out long ago.
That’s it. Precisely. :(
I save money by getting from my father in law next door his old paper copies of the WSJ when he’s done reading them. Either he still has June 6 or it was inadvertently tossed out when the clutter around here got unbearable.
To save me time rooting around for it in the recycle bin, could someone tell me what William McGurn thinks is the reason elites hate us ? Personally, I think it’s because they’re enraged by their new sense that they’ve lost status; that they don’t have the same authority of credibility with us that they once had. (It’s true they don’t. We no longer even reflexively see them as the best judges of what should be considered good manners or good taste. We don’t any longer see our elites as…..well…. classy. It’s a very wierd change.) But I’d like to know what William McGurn thinks.
The link is on the first sentence of this OP, Ansonia. Elitism is not a new phenomenon; it’s just uglier. If you have any thoughts on his piece, let us know in this thread!
I see the link, Susan. You have to subscribe to read the article. The beginning of it is all you see for free, and it’s very good.
This is the middle part. (The quote above ended the piece.) I’m a subscriber so they let me in.
When Mrs. Clinton labeled Trump voters deplorable (“racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it”) she was simply following identity politics to its logical conclusion. Because identity politics transforms those on the other side of the argument—i.e., Americans who are pro-life, who respect the military, who may work in the coal industry—from political opponents into oppressors.
Which is precisely how they are treated: as bigots whose retrograde views mean they have no rights. So when the Supreme Court unilaterally imposes gay marriage on the entire nation, a baker who doesn’t want to cater a gay reception must be financially ruined. Ditto for two Portland women who ran a burrito stand that they shut down after accusations of cultural appropriation regarding their recipes.
The great irony here is that this has left Democrats increasingly choosing undemocratic means to get what they want. From President Obama’s boast that he would use his pen and phone to bypass Congress to the progressive use of the Supreme Court as its preferred legislature to the Iran and climate deals that made end runs around the Constitution, it all underscores one thing: The modern American progressive has no faith in the democratic process because he has no trust in the American people.
Thank you, Susan. I’ll either subscribe or head out to the recycle bin and start searching.
Great post. And comment 11 makes me only more interested in reading him.
His writing is pretty consistently in alignment with my own thinking. So of course I like him a lot!
I’m so tickled! I wrote to William McGurn to tell him that I’d used his quote in this OP and he must have read the OP and responded:
“Thanks for the vote of confidence. I agree with you: hard to see their ever abandoning their elitism. The BEST of all the bad advice their getting comes down to, Hey, fellas, how’s about doing a better job HIDING our obvious contempt! All the best, Bill”
Has anyone besides me felt safer, and more free to speak his/her mind, since Trump was elected? I know this isn’t necessarily rational. But, I feel completely different–much less frightened by, and angry about, how controlling elites are.
As for hiding contempt, in at least a few situations, that kind of treacherous dishonesty would be a step in the right direction. (I don’t want my grandchildren learning to be as genuine as the yahoos on college campuses.) It’s a good sign if the left is beginning to feel that they’d better start pretending to think we all have a right to speak, different viewpoints should be argued with civility, etc. I won’t forget I saw and heard that a large number of them don’t mean it.
Woof. Woof.
Progressives believe they don’t have to change because they are on the right side of history. Unfortunately there is some truth in their historical materialist fantasy because institutions rot through time, power naturally centralizes, and the default position erodes freedom and the competition that it requires. That’s why civilizations fall or become conquered.
Right, so because so many believe they are immune to the temptation of power, I guess we are fated to repeat the build and conquer cycle.
I would have liked to believe the millennium of “stitching” ( @claire ) together our Western Culture that created The Constitution and the check powers form of government would have created a foundation that lasted more than 241 years.
There is still time…
Silly woman, you are, Jules. Why would the Left care a smidgen about history, the Constitution or checks and balances? They are on the leading edge (of jumping into hell, after all), and we should all get in line . . . sorry . . . [sarcasm off]
Gahh.
Silly me, with ideas and history meaning anything.
I will never let you down! Count on it!
I felt the same after Reagan was elected. The atmosphere changed. The perspective changed. Life was so different after our boom time which we had been told could never again happen. (Sound familiar?)
You are so sweet, Tennessee! Thank you so much!
They believe that identity politics is a successful long term strategy; keep minorities and enough women disgruntled long enough and eventually white men will simply be rendered irrelevant numerically. If there’s any larger meaning to Trump’s election, it’s that that time has not yet come, if it ever will.
I’m concerned, Umbra, that there will always be unhappy minorities and women. And we keep creating whole new groups of disgruntled people in the LBGT-whatever groups. I think with the Trump election we’ve acknowledged the people who have been left behind–the middle class. Now we just need to help them out by creating jobs and cleaning up the health care mess. That’s going to be one more messy and unpredictable journey.
I’m reminded of a Republican politician, I want to say in New Mexico, who won a majority Hispanic district by pointing to the Democrat’s environmentalism (she had opposed some big development project that would have brought hundreds of jobs to the area) and saying, “She cares more about [some random birds] than she does about you.”
Maybe Suzanne Martinez?
No, I’m pretty sure the Republican was a man, and it was for a legislative position (either a House seat or state legislature.) And I’m not even sure it was New Mexico, for that matter! This is all from memory.
Don’t worry about it, UF. Your point is what mattered. We have to deal with the idealism and irrationality of the Left, reason be damned. I wish I had some answers to turn that around.