Plain-talking Boots-wearing Reglar Guy
I take the ostrich approach about certain things. Maybe it’s because I’m conserving my irritation-energy in order to use it here – but some sources of irritation I just do my best to ignore. I would ignore people shouting into their cell phones (mobiles) in public if I could, but alas I cannot. I would ignore CNN news on the tv set at the airport if I could, but alas I cannot. I would ignore the nasty music playing in the supermarket and the bookstore if I could, but – you get the idea. But some things I do have control over, some on-off switches I do have access to, and I keep them firmly in the off position. I ignore the presidential campaign (mind you, I always do ignore those), and I ignore tv news and various tv argument shows and shout-fests. But once in awhile I bump into one by accident, on my way somewhere else, and my attention is caught. It was caught a few evenings ago, and I stared in slack-jawed amazement. At? A couple of telegenic guys were mouthing about something on MSNBC, but what I was gaping at was the blurb at the bottom of the screen. It said: ‘Elite media bashes ‘The Passion.’ This was on MSNBC, remember. Oh yes, MSNBC, poor penniless non-elite MSNBC. What on earth does ‘elite’ mean in that illiterate sentence? Something along the lines of ‘Has a different view of things from Normal Amurrikans,’ I suppose.
But of course I shouldn’t be amazed. It’s everywhere, that kind of thing. Which is exactly why I ignore so many pieces of everywhere, so that I don’t have to keep being reminded of that. Of the staggering idiocy of people who swallow that line, and the infuriating perversity of people who peddle it. The line that the elite is no longer the rich and powerful, it’s simply anyone with views however microscopically to the left of whoever happens to be using the epithet. Or, that it’s anyone who’s ever read a book, or who likes reading books, or who likes to think now and then. The line that people like that are bad and evil, and that therefore the way to be a good person is to go to great lengths to seem even more incurious and anti-intellectual than one already is. As in this article about what a ‘regular guy’ George W Bush is.
Until last month, President Bush hadn’t been to a NASCAR race since he was governor of Texas and running for president. On Monday, he goes to a rodeo and livestock exhibition in Houston – again, for the first time since he was governor. Such appearances at sporting events this election year help Bush shore up his standing with his core supporters: white men. They also show him as a plain-talking boots-wearer with Middle America tastes – an image Bush has cultivated for years to counter his background as an Ivy Leaguer from an old, wealthy, New England-based family. That comes in handy particularly this year, as the president will almost certainly face Democratic Sen. John Kerry, a wealthy Northeasterner the Bush campaign aims to paint as out of sync with much of the country. Allan Lichtman, a political scientist at American University in Washington, said the events call attention to Bush as “both the macho guy and the regular guy. Despite all the charges that his administration is a giveaway to the rich, this shows President Bush as in touch with the concerns and the lives of ordinary Americans in all the ways the patrician, distant, former hippie war protester John Kerry isn’t,” Lichtman said.
What? What? It does what? It shows what? In touch? What does that mean? The concerns? The lives? The boots? What in hell is the man talking about? Have we been completely invaded by pod people who have sucked out all our brains and eaten them, leaving small pools of Miracle Whip in their place? Do people really not realize that the ol’ boots-wearer, Mr Plain-talking (that’s one way to describe it), is also a wealthy Northeasterner? Who is in fact himself ‘out of sync with much of the country’? (That usually is the case, actually. That’s why we have more than one party, at least it’s supposed to be.) That however many boots he wears he is still who he is and not some ranch hand? That tastes are one thing, and what he does to us is quite, quite, quite another? Is that really so hard to grasp??
Well, you see why I ignore this kind of thing. My voice rises to a piercing scream in a matter of seconds, my eyes bulge out of my head, and then I start to foam at the mouth. So it won’t do. I’ll let Tom Frank do it instead. He does a very good job.
That’s the mystery of the United States, circa 2004. Thanks to the rightward political shift of the past 30 years, wealth is today concentrated in fewer hands than it has been since the 1920s; workers have less power over the conditions under which they toil than ever before in our lifetimes; and the corporation has become the most powerful actor in our world. Yet that rightward shift-still going strong to this day-sells itself as a war against elites, a righteous uprising of the little guy against an obnoxious upper class.
Frank also goes on to say interesting things about the grain of truth in the Volvo-driving liberal stereotype, and what the left ought to do about it.
Yup,pretty sad, ain’t it?
That just confirm my ‘elitist’ half-kidding contention that Americans have consistently shown for years that they don’t deserve to have the opportunity to elect their leaders. Tsk, tsk. Unfair that most people in this planet don’t get to elect the “President of the World”….Not that they would do much better, anyways.
Yep, purty dang sad.
Gotta go, it’s time for the rodeo.
Hmm. The Tories tried something like this against Labour a few years ago; denouncing ‘Westminster liberals’ and running a populist campaign that went further and further to the right as it went on. Working class voters would never dream of voting Tory so it made no difference at all there, and it seemed to leave sufficient middle-class voters nauseated as to cause them to lose a few seats to the Liberal party.
[turning an unbecoming shade of purple with envy and rage]
Ohhh, if only it would backfire here. But it never, never does.
“Working class voters would never dream of voting Tory “
White working class USA consistently vote Republican. Why that difference? Is this just plain old stupidity or, as often derided (and arguably simplistic, but not necessarily wrong) Michael Moore declares, the prevalence of the Horatio Alger myth?…or both?
Tom Frank talks about that in the article I linked to. It certainly hasn’t always been true. Wasn’t true on the whole until the late 60s, I believe. Vietnam may have been one reason, cultural upheaval another, the decline of heavy industry, factory closings, the shift of factory work to the non-unionized South others. But there’s also the fact that the working class frankly doesn’t get much from the Democrats any more. The Dems take them for granted (“Where else are they going to go?”) and suck up to their bosses instead. Depressing but true.
But also this cultural crap does work. Why it works…I don’t know. Plain old stupidity, Horatio Alger, something to do with tv-culture so that “likeability” and being “down to earth” matters more than legislation…? Who knows, who knows.
I don’t trust the Democrats either, but it just strikes me as odd…the fact that only two parties have a realistic chance to win says a lot about the conformity and/or apathy of the American electorate.
That, and tv culture, yes. I don’t see a way out of the stultifying and poisonous influence of TV culture on the average citizen. Why read anthropology and evolutionary theory when you can watch ‘Survivor’ or ‘Average Joe’ and acquire a frivolous misconception of the ‘survival of the fittest’?
The “blue collar loves Bush” issue is puzzling, but I found this article fascinating. It posits that while Democrats and liberals generally believe that people vote their interests, what they actually vote for is the best story.
Hi, Marta! That is an interesting article. I’ve read Lakoff on that stuff before. He’s right – and it is maddening, how much better the Republicans are at framing.
Just in the interests of accuracy, some of the working classes have always voted Tory in the UK. Psephologists have been worrying about it for at least fifty years (for example, in the 1950s, they talked about deferential voters).
Indeed, one of the things that marked out Thatcherism was the fact that increasing numbers of skilled working class voters were voting Tory. There was even an expression coined to describe this process (partisan dealignment).
What is true, though, is that even at the height of Thatcherism more working class people voted Labour than Tory, and that there are areas of the UK, where the working class almost to a person vote Labour.
Many working class people seem to vote Tory because they don’t realise they’re working class.
All this “we’re all middle class now” bollocks, first Thatcher and continued by Blair – I think there’s some silly figure where most people regard themselves as working class (which seems to have been redefined as ‘people that work’) and most people also regard themselves as middle class.
False consciousness I tell you…
“White working class USA consistently vote Republican. Why that difference?”
National narrative, possibly? Europeans viewing redistribution as a means of aiding the disadvantaged, Americans viewing it as placing a ceiling on their aspirations?
I take the point about Thatcher, but to a large extent she appealed to those voters on specific policy issues, e.g. attacking Labour’s record on employment. I don’t recall any attempt to invert the historical class backgrounds of the two parties, other than the one I mentioned under Hague years later. Of the swing seats I can think of where this might have made an impact (Chingford?), as far as I can tell they’ve all reverted to Labour.
“National narrative, possibly? Europeans viewing redistribution as a means of aiding the disadvantaged, Americans viewing it as placing a ceiling on their aspirations? “
Yeah, well, the whole ‘pursuit of happiness’ idea. Horatio Alger and all that. Equality has never been their main concern. Very right-wing friendly, if you ask me. But again, this country has consistently been on the rightward side of the political spectrum (compared with almost everybody else) for years and years.
Blimey, psephologists is it – there’s a new word for me.
“Yes, which is something I’ve always found a difficult concept.”
You’re not the only one! I’ve been puzzling over it for decades. No doubt it’s a whole array of factors – the frontier and availability of land (stolen from other people of course, but never mind that); exceptionalism; land of opportunity; legal equality seeming to displace need for economic equality; equality of opportunity ditto; self-reliance; the work ethic; etc etc.
There is an element of racism in it all, too, I believe. Working white people were not the biggest fans of the Civil Rights Act, and now they perceive social programs as a way of taking their tax money and redistributing it to non-white people who refuse to work. Perceptions, mind you– I don’t agree with any of that, but I think it’s a big part of the tacit subtext to the Republican argument. And did you notice how quickly the Dems objected when some one of the candidates (Dean, I think) said that they needed to go after the guys in pick-up trucks with Confederate flags in the windows? Those are exactly the people who have turned against the Democratic party, but courting them and keeping the anti-racist message intact is problematic. Until low-income white people see that the problems of low-income people of color are also their problems, they will continue to vote with the high-income whites. I don’t think this is the whole problem, but a significant part.
Excellent point. And ties right in with a N&C I was already planning to do on Lee Smith’s article about democracy and Islamism.
“Those are exactly the people who have turned against the Democratic party, but courting them and keeping the anti-racist message intact is problematic.”
Exactly so. And there nearly always are such tensions, and yet it doesn’t do to say so. But if it doesn’t do to say so, how will we ever be able to confront and understand and try to deal with such tensions? We won’t.
“The extent of inequality in American society is such that any other state (or at least any European one) would have produced much more left-wing governance over time. But with some exceptions like the New Deal, there’s little sign of it.”
I heard an interesting comment on this recently, suggesting that Americans think class is more fluid than it is; further, Americans are taught that they can aspire to and gain any level in society they want, so a vote against the interests of the upper class is, in effect, a vote against what you hope that you (or your children) will become.
This is an American story that has defied both time and experience, and is incredibly powerful.
Indeed. Mythology is a powerful thing. That’s not all bad, of course – even illusions can be cheering. But it would also be nice if we could learn to value the public good a little more and low taxes for the rich a little less.