Who Me? Elitist?!

Reading Paul Krugman's column today in the New York Times about the decades of deft Republican maneuvering around people's resentment of the educated, urban classes, it hit me hard that many Democrats are still missing the point on a matter of human nature.

People don't like it when someone comes off as better than themselves, their families, their lifestyles. Krugman writes,

"What the G.O.P. is selling, in other words, is the pure politics of resentment; you’re supposed to vote Republican to stick it to an elite that thinks it’s better than you. Or to put it another way, the G.O.P. is still the party of Nixon."

...all true in my opinion, but it only captures half of the phenomenon in play in the presidential politics of our era. On one hand, the GOP has become masterful at presenting the public with "salt of the earth" candidates who look and sound appealing; walking tall about family values, religion, the flag. On the other hand, the GOP has all but abandoned American conservatism, such as it was, for the wholesale auction of our infrastructure, natural resources, labor market, and government services. Lots of talk about leaving us alone to determine our own fate as pioneers of the land, masters of our fate, as they take our civil liberties and pillage our nation's coffers. But I digress. I haven't even gotten in the same zip code as my point.

Sure, the Republicans are all of those things. But Democrats, especially the urban, highly educated ones like myself and the people I know, need to do a little self examination. Maybe we do look down our noses at the poor, or at least at the less educated, more uncouth among us.

Many are the times that I've been at a party surrounded by like-minded liberals who serve the public interest as activists, environmentalists, health policy types and general academics, and who haven't spoken to someone with a twangy accent beyond stopping at a Cracker Barrel off the interstate on their way to California.

Many are the times that I have been at New York cocktail parties with those "elites"; people who want to do good, people who chose not to go to Wall Street in favor of one non-profit pursuit or another. They aren't bad people. They have good ideas. But they are genuinely out of touch with even the suburban wage slaves among us, let alone rural people.

Many are the times I've heard comments about someone or something being "redneck" or "white trash", somebody making backhanded comments about my living in Atlanta, as if this were Mississippi in 1956. They may mean well, but they really have nothing to say to someone who didn't go to college.

On the flip side:

Many are the times where some guy in a golf shirt thinks I'm "one of them" and lets loose on how poor people are stupid and don't deserve any help if they can't help themselves.

Many are the times that I've encountered someone who comes off as "one of us" but truly detests their Mexican help, and goes to work for no other reason than to make money, and treats the poor with charitable condescention.

Many are the times that I've heard wanting to be left alone as an excuse for slovenly selfishness, and many are the times that I've heard piety used to judge others and control that individuality that is so important to the American psyche.

I work in rural health care with rural people every day. Most of them are nurses or administrators, some of them are just people who have worked hard to help their communities. A good number of the would call themselves Republican, conservative, pro-life. Coming to these towns with my grad school ideas and my expensive accent I need to be aware at every moment. I need to practice true humility, and just listen, find things in common, make small talk, come off as "normal". I need (and want) to do these things because otherwise people would shut down. In doing so, I've learned that there are greater virtues than being smart, other ways to live beyond the i-phone/indy-rock/liberal arts school track. It's been wonderful to see America past the interstates. There are excellent people everywhere.

It is a universal truth that the highly educated and urban will intimidate the less educated and provincial.
It is also true that intimidation often leads to resentment.
It is also-also true that resentment makes people not want to vote for those who intimidate.

Any perceived difference in education and sophistication runs the risk of that resentment.

For a party that wishes to destroy the rights of workers, the environment, wages and welfare, this knowledge is the ultimate political Trojan Horse, built by Nixon, run through the walls of belief by Reagan, and slaying Troy by Bush. The ultimate gift-turned-force-of-destruction.

Democrats need to be more savvy about this in their political strategy. They also need to ask themselves what it is that makes them judge the very people they wish to help. Emotion matters. People care what you think of them. Policy is justified only later. Elections are won on these truths. Republicans have proven time and again that it's not how rich your family is, how many houses you own, or what stocks are in your portfolio. It's how you relate. FDR was rich as sin but he genuinely cared about people. He genuinely helped. Clinton was born poor, and became a slick, underhanded, and successful politician, but he cares about people.

Democrats: tell the country that the other guy doesn't care. Tell them that you do. Then shut up and listen.