Letters to the Editor

• Frank a marxist?

  [Read the article: The rubes and the elites]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  Well, just to get two cents in. Like any essay there are issues worth examining and complete crap. I find the tension described within the Dems historically as pretty true, but not because of "elitism". It comes in my opinion from the Dems reluctance to pander shamelessly to "wedge issues" (flag ammendment in 1988, gay marriage in 2004, abortion all the time.)But the rest of the article I find disturbingly ahistorically lacking and again, as Salon's proclivity, pro Clinton.

  The modern issue of "Elitism" as a wedge was ressurrected by Spiro Agnew in the Nixon administration and was elegantly charted as a conscious strategy of division by emerging conservative think taks by Barbara Ehrenreich in her classic book "Fear of Falling-How the Middle class Moved from Liberal to Conservative". So I suppose this smearing of those NON "blue collar" Americans is OK with the author. Nixon's "Southern Strategy" (sic race baiting) seems to have been conveniently forgotten, as was Reagan's direct play to these hallowed "social values'. Of course through Bush I and II this pandering continued. It doesn't matter that just as Frank decried, these "salt of the earth" have been constantly screwed by those who set them up as champions of their fabric.

  I remember vividly an NPR piece where a small town in Pa moaned in grief over the break up and loss of the only glass factory in town which had sustained them for over 80 years, bought and sold by a "Gordon Gekko" of the 80's Reagan Era where "Greed was Good". The fact that they couldn't see the relationship between the myth they were sold and voted for vs the ruthless reality that destroyed them without compunction is EXACTLY the point Obama, Jim Webb, Clinton himself and others have recognized for a long time.

  Clinton herself went the other way on this, deprecating the states Obama won as meaningless and bringing up the "elite" issue by calling Obama supporters "latte drinkers". So are educated and younger Americans LESS American than their blue collar counterparts?

  I agree with one point in this article. That Democrats have to find a way to communicate to this constituancy that has been played like a fiddle by more conservative forces. Ironically Obama, in context was addressing it, but I agree used poor choices of words which I believe does represent a disconnect. I think gun culture and religion are more deeply rooted as a genuine cultural fabric for many than just a refuge, and it was a mistake to go there. And some of the antipathy progresives feel toward this constituancy, fairly well documented by the author (although somewhat cherry picked-there is far more compassion on liberal blogs: Kos, Marshall, et al than the author would acknowledge) is present to a degree. Hell, sometimes I get pissed at what Bill Maher calls the "idiocracy" of the country.

  But when Jim Webb, no elitist, talks about the same issue more directly-"guns,God and gays", the fact is there is a deep truth to the assertion. That Clinton has brought it up in her own way in reverse, even as her chief advisor goes to Colombia to lobby against a policy she promotes in favor of this group demonstrates greatly both her disingenuousness (or cluelessness-how will THAT help anyone?) at best, and her cynicism at worst.

  To deny the phenomenon that this issue exists is ludicrous. Although most of America is responsible for folowing George Bush off the cliff, the constituancy involved here are charter members of myth believing self slaughter. The Democratic challange is to rewrite the narrative because I will agree with one thing: we are all in this together. Just please don't hold up Hillary Clinton as any kind of paragon of virtue in this regard, whatever good qualities she brings to the table. She has shamelessly pandered to this issue in the vein of the most cynical Republicans.

  Permalink Tuesday, April 15, 2008 05:32 AM