"Condescending" vs. "Not Condescending"

Following up on Michael Gerson's explanation of what's "condescending" to working class voters,

Lower-income whites, he argued, "feel their dreams slipping away," and so they turn to resentment against busing and affirmative action, "anger over welfare" and "fears of crime."

* * *

This is the same argument, expressed more bluntly at a San Francisco fundraiser, that Obama made about bitter, small-town Americans who cling to guns and religion. He does not even admit the possibility that these folks might have actual convictions on issues such as affirmative action, welfare, crime, gun ownership or the meaning of the universe.

Let's take a look at how the right-wing press treats working class voters. Speaking of Hillary Clinton, Quin Hillyer writes:

IN TERMS OF POLICIES, her actions and positions have been directly opposed to the interests of blue-collar workers who pay taxes. Take welfare reform, for instance.

Welfare reform? Didn't Gerson put that topic off-limits?

Perhaps the single most successful programmatic reform in the past 30 years, [welfare reform] saved taxpayers tens of billions of dollars, gave people incentives to find jobs, and quite arguably played a big role in a decade of improving statistics in areas ranging from drops in crime to drops in the teen birth rate and the divorce rate.

Oops - he mentioned crime. How condescending.

As for the "teen birth rate" dropping? Teen births (and teen pregnancy) are on the rise. But maybe he only wants to look at overall statistics, not trends, and suggest that "correlation is the same as causation". If he believes that he's not being condescending - just ignorant. If not... let's check Gerson's list of things elitists do.... Nothing's there about assuming your audience won't see through cheap subterfuge, so apparently it's not condescending to present misleading statistical claims.

This is the woman who tried to foist a massively bureaucratic health care plan onto the American people in 1993 and 1994, but when told that her plan would be devastating to the small mom-and-pop shops that provide most jobs in America, dismissed those concerns with these words: "I can't be responsible for every undercapitalized entrepreneur in America."

Well, according to census data, in 2004 small employers (business with employees, but with < 10 employees) employed 12.7 million people. Move that up to < 20 employees and they employed 21.2 million people. Move that up to < 100 employees, and it's 41.8 million people. Out of 115 million paid employees. There were also close to 20 million nonemployer firms, but those firms wouldn't have been affected by mandates to insure employees. Oh, let's include them anyway. We'll call every business with < 100 employees a "mom-and-pop shop" - assuming some joint operation by husbands and wives, now we're probably around 70 million jobs out of 145 million. So we're close to half.

Let me check Gerson's list.... Lying, lying, lying... nope, not on the list of condescending acts. So I guess Hillyer's okay.

This is also the woman who has spent an entire career supporting legal positions (and judges) that are contrary to the deeply held views of most white workers. Strong support for racial preferences? Check.

Oops. That suggests working class voters care about affirmative action.

Judges who rule against basic Christmas displays in the public square? Check.

Wow. A condescending depiction of judges who uphold the First Amendment as attacking Christianity. But it's not clear that Gerson would view this as suggesting that working class voters "cling to religion" in defiance of actual facts and issues as opposed to "having actual convictions on the meaning of the universe" (even if at odds with the Constitution), so it's hard to tell if Gerson would see this as condescending or not.

Fortunately, I'm sure that any day now Gerson will rip apart the condescension of the right-wing press toward working class Americans. Surely he'll devote column after column to the same issue, tirelessly demonstrating how elitist the right wing media, political leadership, and leading pundits are toward working class voters.

Any day now.....

"They're All Happy Campers"

Remember years ago, when Dan Quayle visited American Samoa?

You all look like happy campers to me. Happy campers you are, happy campers you have been, and, as far as I am concerned, happy campers you will always be.

Exceptionally patronizing and condescending, right? Well, maybe not. Because if you read the likes of Michael Gerson, it's "patronizing" to suggest that blocks of voters are anything but happy campers.

The roots of Gerson's thesis, of course, are the wishes of his Republican masters to expand upon Barack Obama's "bitter/cling" comments, and advance the idea that he is "elitist" for generalizing in any way, whatsoever, about any group of people. Well, no, scratch that - as far as his masters are concerned, it's fine to generalize about blocs of voters who lean Democratic. Not a one of them would criticize somebody for alluding to Democrats or liberals as part of a "Tax-Raising, Latte-Drinking, Sushi-Eating, Volvo-Driving, New York Times-reading, Body-Piercing, Hollywood-Loving, Left-Wing Freak Show". What's forbidden, apparently, is to generalize about voters who lean Republican or who are in the amorphous political "center". The only way to escape that trap, it seems, is to follow the Quayle model of treating them as "happy campers".

Moreover, you must plug your ears to political reality. The "happy campers" of this nation have no resentment of affirmative action. They have no fear of crime. They don't "feel their dreams slipping away". African-American "happy campers" who came of age in an era of Jim Crow and segregation (and here Gerson seems to be speaking both individually and collectively) cannot be said to have "bitterness and biases" resulting from their experiences with legal and institutionalized discrimination.

Gerson explains, "The only thing more insulting than being attacked is being explained." Except it's not "insulting" to be explained, unless the explanation is wrong or "the truth hurts". It's insulting to be "explained away", but that's very different from being "explained", and that expansion on Gerson's actual words doesn't fit Gerson's accusations against Obama. (Besides, Gerson's prior profession was speechwriter, so we shouldn't need to read extra words into his column to have it make sense.)

Gerson proceeds to exemplify how, despite his earlier claims, it's okay to generalize about "they don't vote for us, anyway" voter blocs. Gerson presents extreme elements of "Black theology" that he attributes to James Cone, then tells us that Rev. Wright was mentored by Cone (guilt by association) even though Gerson has apparently been unable to put Cone's words directly into Wright's mouth, then he implies that anybody who goes to a church that is in any way associated with "Black theology" (guilt by association by association) must either accept those views as basic beliefs of their pastor or have been "asleep in the pew".

Although not offered as an defense of his generalizations, Gerson writes, "Most people would rather be termed right or wrong than be dismissed." See? So Gerson wasn't being patronizing, condescending or dismissive when he generalized what he sees as the worst of "Black theology" to all churches that advance some aspect of "black liberation theology" (those are his terms and his capitalization, and it is he who uses the terms as synonyms), and in suggesting that those churches follow a philosophy that is "not Biblical." He was simply telling all of the ministers of those churches, and everybody in their congregations, "You are wrong." Don't go reading a James Baker-type attitude into that. (And don't you dare suggest that Gerson wouldn't dream of offering a similar analysis of a mainstream white Christian movement.)

What's perhaps most interesting about these continuing, relentless right-wing assaults on Obama, Reverend Wright, and his so-called "elitism" (the difference in that regard between Obama and the other candidates being principally one of image, not substance) is that it suggests that Obama remains the Republicans' most feared opponent for the fall campaign.

David Brooks? He's No Fool

When reading David Brooks, The American Conservative reminds us that the operative word isn't tool fool:

I’ve been pondering for months whether David Brooks is far and away McCain’s most sophisticated operative. He writes a deft put-down of Obama today, commenting en passant about “the cultural issues” and Jeremiah Wright, and noting that “voters want a president who basically shares their values and life experiences.” “How Obama Fell to Earth” is the title of the column.

How amazing that Brooks could restrain himself from writing this stuff until Obama was 80 percent assured of securing the Democratic nomination. It’s not as if Jeremiah Wright appeared on the scene yesterday.

While I disagree with the author of that post in relation to his praise of Steve Sailer, whose online activities tend in my view to be about a millimeter short of "white supremacism", the gist is correct - for months, despite the fact that any sensate reader knows he's going to vote for the Republican candidate, Brooks has come close to swooning over Obama. His sudden shift to attack mode isn't inspired by new facts or evidence, but by timing. This approach is not only politically helpful to his party, but makes the job of writing columns about Obama pretty easy - take all the nice things you said about him last month, and explain how disappointed you have become. By things you knew all along, or are making up.

Brooks is in full "no mendacity barred" mode in taking on Obama. He exaggerates Obama's statement on not raising taxes, but more strikingly in whining, " That will make it impossible to address entitlement reform," completely omits the fact that his candidate, McCain, promises further massive tax cuts. Further, it's an outright lie that the most fiscally troubling entitlements, Medicare and Social Security, are significantly affected by a promise not to raise income taxes. There, as I noted yesterday, Obama has proposed lifting the cap on payroll taxes. Check the transcript of the debate. Brooks surely remembers this,

Well, Charlie, I just have to respond real quickly to Senator Clinton's last comment. What I have proposed is that we raise the cap on the payroll tax, because right now millionaires and billionaires don't have to pay beyond $97,000 a year.

Brooks gave an "A" grade to the imbecilic questions raised in the debate, including this whopper from Charlie Gibson:

And in each instance, when the [capital gains] rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased. The government took in more money.

Well, gee... why don't we cut the capital gains rate to 0% and use the massively increased tax revenues to make up for any shortfalls in other areas. (That was sarcasm, of course - but here's a more realistic picture of how capital gains taxes line up with tax revenues.)

Further, half or more of all income taxes are paid by people earning above the range Obama described, so how is it that we could not see significant increases in tax revenues without touching taxes below that threshold? For that matter, when did we enter an era where the only way to increase spending is to raise income taxes?

I recognize that Brooks comes from the school of pseudo-conservatism where deficits matter... but only if there's a Democrat in the White House. But who seriously tries to argue in this era that a balanced budget must take priority over all else, even in the face of a recession? Further, if in fact Obama winds down the war in Iraq, that should free up a lot of money that is presently being spent on the war - although I'm sure Brooks sees it as entirely justifiable deficit spend hundreds of billions on a war he supports, as opposed to spending similar amounts of money repairing this nation's crumbling infrastructure or implementing health care reform.

Which brings us to Brooks' next deception, "Then [Obama] made an iron vow to get American troops out of Iraq within 16 months." Well, no. He didn't. If you actually look at what Obama said, he was very careful to avoid committing to a specific timeframe. He instead indicated that the direction of the war would be his decision to make, with due consideration of the advice of the military. Brooks didn't just fall off the turnip truck - he could have legitimately criticized Obama for evading the question, something that would have fit in just fine with this "He's just another, ordinary politician"-type column. But apparently honesty doesn't serve his purposes.

Then we get into standard Brooks-style elitism, and sneering at working class voters:

Then there are the cultural issues. Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos of ABC News are taking a lot of heat for spending so much time asking about Jeremiah Wright and the “bitter” comments. But the fact is that voters want a president who basically shares their values and life experiences. Fairly or not, they look at symbols like Michael Dukakis in a tank, John Kerry’s windsurfing or John Edwards’s haircut as clues about shared values.

And how do we know voters do this? Because Brooks says they do. And what voters is he describing with this insulting stereotype? You got it.

If it really is "all about image", why has Brooks never sneered at our "cowboy" President for apparently being afraid of horses? Why not a column sniggering, "He's such a wimp, he can't even eat a pretzel without ending up in the hospital"? Because I'm pretty sure he would give us that type of "analysis" of similar "news" about Obama or Clinton.

Do you think there's one chance in a billion that Brooks would say, "This, after all, is how I choose my candidate"? Do you think he would attribute that type of shallow thinking to any other member of the Republican elite? If he did, how fast and furious would be the repudiation? This is mainstream Republican elitism on full display, folks. It's somehow not "elitist" to tell the working class, "You make your voting decisions based upon how a candidate bowls, looks in a tank, or how much he pays for a haircut." Do the voters themselves agree with Brooks? No, it appears that they do not.

I think it is fair to say that voters want a President who will project American values to the world. Image is part of that, and it is thus an important part of a campaign. But it is just plain insulting to picture working class voters as beer-guzzling yokels who choose a candidate based on such conceits as "Who would I rather have a beer with." Whatever the image a candidate cultivates, there are darn few voters who don't recognize that they will never be invited to have a beer with the President - they know that honor is primarily reserved for elites like, well, David Brooks. McCain's not inviting us to his back yard BBQ's. Bush doesn't have us over to watch football, or even to help him clear brush on his faux ranch. We even know that Clinton's shot and a beer was a photo op, not a reflection of her lifestyle, without your telling us. That is to say, Mr. Brooks, contrary to your elitist beliefs, voters aren't half as stupid as you think they are.

Elitism, Kang and Kodos Style

Elitist: You're wrong to be concerned about issues I don't care about. You should vote for me so I can work on the issues I see as important to this country.

Non-Elitist: You're right to be concerned about issues I don't care about. You should vote for me so I can work on the issues I see as important to this country.

Values And Elitism

Although one might think it has already been hammered to death, Dan Schnur, the Washington Post's resident McCain backer now adds to the stack of editorials on Obama's use of the words "bitter" and "cling". His take, although mostly trite, is a bit different than most in that it addresses something frequently forgotten in this discussion - that everybody has values.

Both Senator Obama and Mr. Frank seem to be saying that economic policy should be more important to voters than social and cultural questions.

For many people, that’s certainly true. But there are plenty of other voters who don’t necessarily base their votes solely on jobs and taxes, and many of them are quite financially successful. They have determined their political affiliations largely as a result of the same continuing battles over abortion, guns and same-sex marriage that have drawn so many working-class voters to Republican candidates over the years. The only difference is the side of the fight they’ve chosen. It’s hard to argue that a wealthy pro-choice Democrat is any less of a values voter than a pro-life construction worker who votes Republican.

But here's the thing. The term "values voters" didn't emerge from a void. It was a carefully chosen phrase, used by people like Schnur to direct Republican messages at a specific demographic - a group he describes as "one of the most sought-after prizes in national elections". Yes, values voters, Republican elites like Schnur view you as "prizes" to be "won" - how condescending is that?

As used by somebody like Schnur, the term "values voters" can be interpreted in one of two ways. The more flattering is that the group has values superior to those of other Americans - but Schnur disavows that interpretation, arguing that even elites have values. The less flattering is that the group can be manipulated into voting on values issues, even though their values are no better than anybody else's. That, of course, is what Schnur, et al, see as the implicit meaning of Obama's comment and as the grounds for criticism of Obama.

Isn't there a third way, you ask? That "values voters" place such import on their values that they will vote against their economic self-interest to protect those values? That, of course, is what people like Schnur pretend to be arguing - even though this again doesn't differentiate "values voters" from the "wealthy pro-choice Democrat" Schnur describes.

I might be more charitable to Schnur if the Republicans were sincere in their entreaties to values voters. But surely you haven't missed the disenchantment of the religious right with George W. Bush. Many "values voters" accurately perceive how their concerns have been exploited by the Republican Party in order to get votes and power, but how little actual progress has been made on the values issues they hold dear. Schnur sees these reflected in "issues like gun ownership, abortion and same-sex marriage". Beyond that, why does Schnur's list of values omit, for example, peace, justice, or the environment - values cherished by many "blue collar Americans"? Why is it that the only values he articulates as belonging to that group are Republican wedge issues? Because that's all he sees? Or is it that values that don't work in favor of the Republican Party aren't worthy of notice?

Other than a set of "Chicken Little" ballot initiatives about how gay marriage would sweep the nation without state constitutional amendments, what progress have "values voters" seen on these issues under G.W. Bush? Essentially nothing. What did they "lose" on these issues under Bill Clinton? Essentially nothing. So it becomes necessary to reinvent the issue, not as "We're the party that will give lip service to your moral values but not lift a finger when it comes to acting on them," but as, "At least we don't look down on you for your moral values."

An environmentally conscious, pro-stem cell bond trader who votes Democratic is lauded for selflessness and open-mindedness. A gun-owning, church-going factory worker who supports Republican candidates, on the other hand, must be the victim of partisan deception. This double standard is at the heart of the Democratic challenge in national elections: rather than diminish these cultural beliefs as a byproduct of economic discomfort, a more experienced and open-minded candidate would recognize and respect the foundations on which these values are based.

So it's still a one night stand, but Schnur is willing to promise, "If you vote for us, we'll still respect you in the morning." (Just don't expect a phone call.)

If that's not enough condescension for you, exactly when did the term "values voter" become synonymous with "blue-collar Americans"? Schnur conflates the groups as a matter of convenience - it allows him to suggest that Obama looks down on all working class Americans, while escaping the task of differentiating blue collar workers who are "values voters" from those who are not. Saying "We're all values voters" is not sufficient; Schnur is describing a particular demographic. If Schnur truly believes that all "blue collar Americans" are a monolith, thinking as he believes they do, we've again entered the realm of extraordinary condescension.

This whole idea of elitism is rather funny, not just because by the definitions applied in this debate our Founding Fathers were elitist, but because the elites of both parties constitute a de facto ruling class. They represents the best and the worst of the aristocracies Jefferson described - the "natural aristocracy" of people who have risen on their merits, combined with the "artificial aristocracy" of people who get their power by virtue of "wealth and birth". If your issue does not matter to those elites, it will take nothing short of a political earthquake to move Congress to act on your behalf. Hence the sleepy tokenism the Republican Party offers to "values voters" - an offering of table scraps to retain their votes, but no seat at the big table.

Let's consider how John McCain stacks up on this front, starting with his new tax proposal: Working Americans get a "gas tax holiday", a gradual increase in the exemption for dependents, and a massive increase in... let's call it the birth tax - each person's share of the exploding federal deficit. The upper middle class and wealthy get gradual relief from the Alternative Minimum Tax. The wealthy get immediate and permanent relief from income and estate taxes. Corporations get their taxes slashed by 40%. The cost of this to working Americans? Less money to fix roads and improve infrastructure, an even larger federal deficit, and if we do anything to try to balance the budget, massive reductions in Medicare and Social Security benefits (with no corresponding reduction in Medicare or Social Security taxes).

But McCain's a "man of the people". He's perfectly at home cooking at his back yard BBQ. So much so that he bought the neighboring house so he would have more room for his parties. He'll refer to voters as "my friends", but sorry, we're the type of friends who don't get asked over for a hamburger. He won't release his tax returns, probably because his deductions would appall the average working American. (Does he really want people to know how much he spends on his annual BBQ for the press? And yes, I do suspect he takes a deduction for that event.)

We can go further. McCain goes to a Baptist Church, yet has never been baptized and has a long history of antipathy toward the leadership of the Religious Right - until it because convenient to embrace John Hagee and Rod Parsley. He has a long history of championing free trade agreements, but to put it mildly he's not emphasizing that fact. A champion of campaign finance reform, he backed out of his commitment to use public financing for his primary campaign. A champion of balanced budgets, he has embraced the anti-tax agenda of the "Club for Growth" despite the consequences to the budget - a retreat from his past positions similar to his embrace of the religious right. (The Club For Growth loves McCain's budget proposals, save of course for those elements directed at working Americans.) Until recently McCain was a champion of immigration reform, but seems to have flip-flopped on that issue as well.

So yes, as Schnur says,

[L]ike the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. controversy that preceded it, Senator Obama’s tendency to erect cultural barriers between himself and this critical block of swing voters will become more of an obstacle in a general election campaign.

Because people like Schnur will keep feeding that line to the swing voters to distract them from how little McCain actually has to offer, or to perpetuate the myth that the Republicans are somehow less "elitist" than Democrats.

Elitist Politicians

You think Obama's an elitist? Get a load of this guy:

For I agree with you that there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents. Formerly bodily powers gave place among the aristoi. But since the invention of gunpowder has armed the weak as well as the strong with missile death, bodily strength, like beauty, good humor, politeness and other accomplishments, has become but an auxiliary ground of distinction.

There is also an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents; for with these it would belong to the first class. The natural aristocracy I consider as the most precious gift of nature for the instruction, the trusts, and government of society. And indeed it would have been inconsistent in creation to have formed man for the social state, and not to have provided virtue and wisdom enough to manage the concerns of the society.

May we not even say that that form of government is the best which provides the most effectually for a pure selection of these natural aristoi into the offices of government?

It's kind of hard to imagine him pretending to like pork rinds, or making fun of a political candidate for eschewing Cheez Whiz (yes, that was Tucker Carlson calling John Kerry "elitist") or for eating fried chicken with a knife and fork, isn't it....