RSS Feed Menu“She [Palin] had earned the eternal enmity of the liberal elite for the affront of who she was: a working-class, pro-life woman with decidedly red-state mores.” – Rich Lowry, King Features, July 7, 2009.
“Liberal elites and the media – which is a big part of the liberal elite class – and some Republicans hate Sarah Palin. They loathe her. It’s not really political … it’s cultural. She’s everything they don’t like: middle-class/working-class, a woman who is pro-life and a serious Christian.” – Fred Barnes, Fox News, July 3, 2009.
“Todd and I, heck, we’re going through that right now even as we speak, which may put me again kind of on the outs of those Washington elite who don’t like the idea of just an everyday working class American running for such an office.” – Sarah Palin, Hugh Hewitt show, Sept. 30, 2008.
Conservatives tend to define white people as “working class” for reasons of cultural affect, i.e. they say, “you betcha”, and own guns, are anti-abortion, seem to have conservative economic views, didn’t go to an elite university, and are deeply religious. Thus, Sarah Palin is “working class”, and “liberals” dislike her.
But social scientists–political scientists, sociologists, economists–don’t care about any of these factors. They argue basically over three definitions what defines the “working class”: by education, income, or occupation (or some combination of the three). They don’t care whether somebody went to Princeton, but, rather, whether they simply graduated from a four year college–any four year college–because they know, unlike Rick Lowry, that only 29% of Americans have, and thus anybody who has a bachelor’s degree has a leg up, in terms of “human capital.” They categorize jobs in terms of skill levels, rather than worrying about whether somebody annoys Paul Krugman, owns a gun, or reads the National Review or The Nation in their home. And, finally, they look at income–either relative to others, e.g. the bottom 1/3 of American households, the way Larry Bartels of Princeton does, widely considered to be the top American political scientist, or in absolute terms, i.e. the wealthier society gets, then the wealthier the “working class” would get too.
So how does Palin do? On one level–the Sarah Palin of today–the question is a classic “no brainer:” Of course, she’s not working class! She is: a) college educated; b) has a complex, skilled, white collar job: Governor of Alaska c) and that job pays her far more than the average American or Alaskan. Zero for three. Todd’s a more interesting case–he makes a good income, has some skills, but he’s only taken a few college classes, and he’s a union guy–but let’s leave him out of it.
Now, maybe they mean: “Palin’s from a ‘working class background.’” Ok–that’s a plausible usage. Look at my wife Maureen. In no way can she currently be labeled “working class.” Again, by the three standards of education, occupation, and income, she is zero for three. But if you say, “Maureen comes from a working class background”, you’re making an accurate statement. Two parents with one high school education between them. Occupations of parents: clerical, and air conditions system repair man (union). Income–probably not bad with the union job, but certainly not fabulous. So, as a kid, Maureen was at least 2 out of 3 on the working class scale, with an income, maybe in the 40-50% percentile–reasonable to call her working class.
Ok, let’s look at Palin. Dad’s a high school science teacher–that’s not a “fantastic” job, but it’s a white collar job, which requires a college education, and usually, with seniority, a high school teacher makes a better than average income plus decent benefits. Mom’s clerical, so she may well have not gone to college, and probably didn’t make a great salary. Hard to know what their family income was–maybe around what Maureen’s parents were percentile wise. So: in fairness, I’d put Palin sort of in the gray area between the working class and the lower middle class, in terms of family background. The high school teacher dad probably lifts her barely into the middle class. It’s close–but as for her background today as the well paid, college educated governor of Alaska (at least for another few weeks)–that’s not close at all. No social scientist in America would call her “working class” just because she skins seals and says “you betcha” anymore than they would call George W Bush “working class” for wearing jeans with big belt buckles and speaking with lousy syntax.
Ruy Teixiera has more to say about this issue in this article.
ottovbvs // Jul 8, 2009 at 8:33 am
To fit Palin in it helps to have a visual picture of the class structure. Historically class structures have been pyramidal in shape with the very rich, titled etc at the top and a spreading base of upper middle class, middle class and finally the broad working class below. America doesn’t look like that any longer. Instead think of it like a diamond shape. The very rich still at the top, then a huge swelling middle class, a somewhat narrower working class and finally the very poor at the bottom. Palin in background is very much in that middle band, maybe just below the mid point. Now she’s definitely in the upper middle class and when the big bucks start rolling in she will be at the pinnacle of the diamond. The constant use of elitist by the right as an epithet is as phony as most of their rhetoric. Dick Cheney (worth probably $75 million) and George Bush (Bonesman, Phillips Andover, Yale and Harvard scion of old money New England family) are NOT elitists. Even when you come to the lowly conservative shills who throw this language around, most of them went to Ivies, dwell a long way from Rapid City SD in places like Washington or NYC, wouldn’t be seen dead in Wal-Mart. So what gives? It’s called hypocrisy.
barker13 // Jul 8, 2009 at 9:11 am
“Conservatives tend to define white people as “working class” for reasons of cultural affect…”
We do…???
(*SCRATCHING MY HEAD*)
“…i.e. they say, “you betcha”…”
Actually… (*SHRUG*)… no.
(*SNORT*)
Fellow denizens of New Majority, I ask you… am I the only one noticing that with all sorts of crap going on here in America and throughout the world…
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Government-Web-sites-attacked-apf-1342411279.html?x=0&.v=5
http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSN0751853920090707
http://www.reuters.com/article/usMktRpt/idUSN0733371020090707
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=auDlqzgeMZww
…and so on and so forth that Frum & Co. seem fixated on conservative baiting?
And David… you notice that while I’m still here other reasonable posters seem to have pulled back – perhaps pulled out for good?
Is this what you really want… a site attractive mainly to the “Otto” contingent?
BILL
Oneon1isto // Jul 8, 2009 at 11:04 am
I enjoyed this article.
I’m sort of sick of the whole elites vs. us debate, and how it’s randomly to applied to bolster already stuck values. The “pick yourself up by your bootstraps” narrative can apply to many, and certainly applies to our current president and vice president. Yes, they have become elite, but if we’re arguing about narrative they’re a better argument than the “you betchas” of the world.
By the way, I move that we all go back to H4X0rz speak and start using 1337 for elite. Anyone with me?
balconesfault // Jul 8, 2009 at 11:16 am
The ludicrous part of labelling people “elitist” just because they attended elite colleges is you’re basically drawing a line that says “people are elite for being driven from a young age”.
Barack Obama did not get into Columbia and Harvard Law because he came from an elitist background. Michelle Obama didn’t get into Princeton because she came from an elitist background. Bill Clinton didn’t get into Georgetown, Oxford, and Yale Law because he came from an elitist background.
Clinton exemplified extraordinary personal drive from a young age, despite coming from a family background that put him a number of rungs down from Palin’s family.
Michelle Obama’s parents were a water plant worker and a secretary, but they managed to motivate their kids to do the hard work it took to get into Princeton – including Michelle making a 3 hour round trip to a magnet HS to help her get the tools she needed to get accepted (I’m assuming it was an easier path for her brother, who was a basketball star, since Ivy League schools are always on the lookout for kids with the skills to compete at the NCAA level who can also succeed academically in that environment).
Barack Obama spent his first two years at Occidental College in LA, before building up a transcript that could get him accepted into Columbia. Obama is somewhat illustrative of this whole issue – would he not have been “elite” had he just settled and remained at Occidental, rather than pushing for the more “elite” Ivy League environment at Columbia? Would he have been less “elite” had he then gone from a respectable California college to Duke Law instead of Harvard Law, like that noted anti-elitist Richard M. Nixon?
The whole “elitist” charge is a canard. It may have some validity if the person who attended an elite university clearly was able to do so thanks not to their HS or other pre-collegiate accomplishments (like the military) but because of family legacies and connections. But when we have people who obviously had to work their asses off and make many sacrifices to have access to an “elite” education, we should be celebrating them as exemplars of the American ideal, and not attacking them for their achievements. That way lies a dangerous anti-intellectual demagoguery which can only drag a society down in the long run.
sinz54 // Jul 8, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Elitism, as it’s referred to in political discourse today, refers not to one’s background, but to one’s attitude:
“Elitists” are those insufferably arrogant snobs who think they know what’s best for all those other folks out there in the South and in the so-called “flyover states,” whom they regard as ignorant morons.
A classic example is Jane Smiley’s “The unteachable ignorance of the Red States” (2004). She wrote:
“Ignorance and bloodlust have a long tradition in the United States, especially in the red states….
‘The error that progressives have consistently committed over the years is to underestimate the vitality of ignorance in America. Listen to what the red state citizens say about themselves, the songs they write, and the sermons they flock to. They know who they are—they are full of original sin and they have a taste for violence. The blue state citizens make the Rousseauvian mistake of thinking humans are essentially good, and so they never realize when they are about to be slugged from behind.
“Here is how ignorance works: First, they put the fear of God into you—if you don’t believe in the literal word of the Bible, you will burn in hell. Of course, the literal word of the Bible is tremendously contradictory, and so you must abdicate all critical thinking, and accept a simple but logical system of belief that is dangerous to question. A corollary to this point is that they make sure you understand that Satan resides in the toils and snares of complex thought and so it is best not try it.”
This type of snobbery and arrogance can be seen in physicians, physical scientists (cf. Carl Sagan’s “The Demon Haunted World”), and especially in social scientists, who approach American society the same way Margaret Mead would approach a primitive tribe in New Guinea.
This type of elitism gave us forced busing, Carter’s energy austerity program of shivering in the dark, and a secular antipathy to religion as some kind of backward, violent superstition. And it doesn’t go over well in a nation in which the overwhelming majority are religious.
ottovbvs // Jul 8, 2009 at 12:19 pm
balconesfault // Jul 8, 2009 at 11:16 am
……..Very well put…….my three kids went to Ivies at huge expense and had to work incredibly hard in order to do well…..they are all much brighter than me….but at the end of the day they had it a bit easier than an Obama or a Sotmayor……this is so obvious that one shouldn’t have to say it but because this whole thing has been hi-jacked for political spin it’s a sad commentary on the state affairs that one has to……After all who are we kidding…..the country is run in the main by elitists using the loose definition conservatives love to throw around…..I’m an elitist by their pathetic standards, so naturally I’m in favor of it…….Conservative are constantly whining about class warfare (by which they mean we shouldn’t be upset when some Wall Street financier earns $300 million) but are constantly invoking classic class mantras like elitism. I have to admit they’ve been quite succesful at persuading middle income voters in Alabama that they share a community of interest with the $300 million guy but that could prove a couple of different things.
ottovbvs // Jul 8, 2009 at 12:39 pm
sinz54 // Jul 8, 2009 at 12:09 pm
“Elitists” are those insufferably arrogant snobs ”
………So that’s what I am…I’ll have to limit myself to one cocktail tonight to improve my credentials and to atone for what I’m sure will be perceived as some elitist statements….I certainly don’t underestimate the vitality of ignorance…..after all it largely explains the enduring appeal of the GOP in some benighted places…….As H. L. Mencken observed no one ever went broke underestimating the ignorance of the American people……The problem for the GOP is that is that an increasing part of its constituency fall into this category….In the last election for the first time ever a majority of college grads voted Democratic…..for the first time ever a majority of the upper middle class defined by income voted democratic……a majority of the burbs where 75% of Americans live voted Democratic…..these folks just aren’t in the main attracted to ideological dogmas that reject science and empirical evidence, and fail to pay due regard to effective management. Unfortunately these remain the dominant characteristics of today’s Republican party. …..Here today there are diaries up condemning Obama for disarming for agreeing to reduce our arsenal of hydgrogen bombs to a mere 1,675; another berating him for ultimately being willing to engage with Iran because it oppresses its people as if we aren’t constantly engaging with many states that oppress their people; and yet another denying we have a healthcare problem. It’s anti elitist but it’s also anti commonsense.
Chekote // Jul 8, 2009 at 6:42 pm
Sarah Palin is a phony. That’s it. End of story. The sooner the GOP detaches itself from her and the kind of politics she represents the better.
sinz54 // Jul 8, 2009 at 7:34 pm
ottovbvs: No, I don’t think you share the elitists’ contempt for religion.
While you have strong differences with the Protestant fundamentalists in the GOP base, you don’t equate atheism with reason and enlightenment as the elitists do.
ottovbvs // Jul 9, 2009 at 9:36 am
sinz54 // Jul 8, 2009 at 7:34 pm
“While you have strong differences with the Protestant fundamentalists in the GOP base, you don’t equate atheism with reason and enlightenment as the elitists do.”
……..Sorry Sinz……While I certainly don’t equate atheism with reason and enlightenment (communism?) I’m afraid I think religion is baloney……I certainly don’t have any issues with the practice of religion which is to me largely a private matter …..my wife is a devout catholic…..I personally have a taste for Episcopalian and Methodist hymns and the language of the old CoE liturgy……but god was invented by man not the other way around…..and like the founders I’m totally opposed to any mixing of state and religion other than the outward forms.
Chekote // Jul 9, 2009 at 9:53 am
and like the founders I’m totally opposed to any mixing of state and religion other than the outward forms.
Completely agree. Religion and politics are a bad mix. Our founding fathers understood that back in the 1700s. Yet, they are people who still don’t in 2009.
ottovbvs // Jul 9, 2009 at 10:30 am
Chekote // Jul 9, 2009 at 9:53 am
” Our founding fathers understood that back in the 1700s. Yet, they are people who still don’t in 2009.”
…………They did indeed…..you have to remember these guys were living at a time when religious wars had been going on for centuries…..other than nationalism religion is probably the main cause of violent death throught the ages…… although it was starting to fade with the enlightenment they recognized religion was hugely divisive and a source of conflict and they didn’t want to screw up their nice shiny new Republic by installing the virus
Robert Graves // Jul 9, 2009 at 9:36 pm
I grew up in Tennessee at a time when Jim Crow laws were still on the books. It was widely accepted that white people were intellectually and morally superior to black people. There was a Ku Klux Klan klavern in the area where I lived. Respectable people weren’t Kluxers. Members of the Klan were said to be white trash.
Fast forward …
Some people believe that “moderate Republicans” are intellectually and morally superior to “social conservatives”. Respectable people don’t say “you betcha”. They aren’t members of the NRA. They’re pro-choice. They may call themselves Christians, but they aren’t religious Christians. They affect an appreciation of “the arts”. They strive to be thought of as sophisticated. nuanced thinkers. They pretend to be tolerant, but, in reality, they’re bigots. People who aren’t like them and who don’t aspire to be like them are, at best, unenlightened. But probably they’re just stupid.
Recognize anybody?