Wednesday, September 25, 2013

ON REPUBLICAN SHEEPSKIN ENVY

DougJ thinks the teabaggers aren't as anti-elitist as they pretend to be:
One thing that strikes me about the current crop of GOP bad men is that they sure are an unlikely group of tough guys. Ted Cruz, a former law student so effete he wouldn't deign to study with graduates of the "minor ivies", and Rand Paul, a mild-mannered Duke-educated ophthalmolog[ist], aren't likely to spill the blood of any tyrants outside of role-playing games.

They aren't plain-spoken heartland alternatives to elite librul east coasters, they're just the even douchier former classmates of elite librul east coasters.

It goes to show that all the love for Joe the Plumber was a sham. Teahadists may decry book-learnin' but in the end they revere it.
I think they've come to the conclusion that East Coast elitism is some sort of secret weapon we use unfairly against them -- it's not that our pols actually learn stuff at elite colleges, they just get told the secret handshake and as a result go on to enslave the citizenry. Oddly, this seems to be an Obama-era obsession of the right -- the Clintons had hoity-toity degrees, but Bill was mocked mostly for being no-'count trash (i.e., right-wingers mocked him just the way they say we elitist bigots mock them).

Dave Weigel wrote about Republican elitism envy back when Newt Gingrich was leading in Republican presidential polls:
When he talks to Republicans, especially to Republican voters who may not be inclined to back him, Newt Gingrich wins them over with a promise. He will outsmart Barack Obama. He will challenge him to "seven Lincoln-Douglas-style debates," as he said last week at the Republican Jewish Coalition's confab. The president can even "use a teleprompter," jokes Gingrich. It's one of the tightest punchlines in conservative politics.

... They've started to imagine him facing off against Barack Obama, the president they consider a pure media creation who can't put two words together unless they're in blue type on a screen in front of him.
Right -- they desperately want to believe that any brainy Democrats are just putting on a stupidity-concealing act. They fear they may be wrong, however, or at least they fear that any battle of wits is going to go our way because it takes place under our rules, which rig the game. They're desperate for one of theirs to beat one of us at this game. Hence the love for Cruz, and the awe with which they talk about his degrees, his appearances before the Supreme Court, and so on. He survived by his wits in enemy territory.

Of course, there are many sources of Republican envy. Sarah Palin was supposed to trump our Hillary Clinton and close the gender gap. And they really envy our racial diversity, which is why they desperately want to find a marketable black Republican -- Elbert Guillory, Ben Carson, whoever. (Carson was actually supposed to be a two-fer, a black conservative who was an acclaimed neurosurgeon. Controversial anti-gay and pro-creationist views seem to have put the kibosh on that.)

Basically, Republicans think every vote that doesn't go to them was obtained through deceit and subterfuge.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Tea Party is on average better educated and higher income than most Americans. I think we make the mistake in thinking that most wingers are uneducated southern hicks from fly over country. In many cases they are extremely well educated upper income earners from the exurbs of major areas.

It's like that in DC. The rich areas of DC, no difference in Democrats or Republicans other than if they think killing social security or gay marriage is more important at the moment, but they agree. Go a bit farther out and it's mostly urban well off liberals. Go a bit farther out and it's mini mansions of suburban soccer liberals. Go a tad bit further out and it's bigger houses with Tea Baggers brandishing multiple masters degrees, insane incomes, that run the organizations the rest of us work for that really just fucking hate public transportation and the rest of us urban hipster types and are worried as shit they're going to get their Rolex and iphone stolen while taking lunch downwtown.

Now granted if you go even farther out you run into the redneck fundies that we all love to laugh about. But those aren't the only ones. They're just united by hate. The rural fuckers hate us all the same as those from the exurbs, but the exurb types are much better educated and well off than even the liberals. This also shows by income levels in NOVA and who makes up what area. Arlington is blue as fuck, Fairfax blueish purple, but the really rich Loudon area and others are pretty damn fucking red.

There's also the factor that as you move up in life, grow older, and have a family you move farther and farther out. So many of them view those of us further in as people who never made it (true in most cases) or are just young fools (also true).

This holds true for most metropolitan areas.

All this to say, assuming the Tea Party isn't educated and well off is really silly and dangerous.

Ten Bears said...

I'm gonna' have to backass sorta' disagree goose: my observation remains the bulk are drug addled hypmotozed rubes but yes I have encountered a population of better educated more affluent scrotum suckers for whom this is an affliction not unlike the sixth century (common) Khazars, Russian mongols whom assumed, afflicted, the mantle of Jewery as Christians and Muslims alike then held usary - the lending of money at interest - to be a sin.

No fear.

Knight of Nothing said...

"Basically, Republicans think every vote that doesn't go to them was obtained through deceit and subterfuge."

This is like the Rosetta Stone of Republican thought. Seriously, it explains everything. Liberals are the real racists; global warming is a hoax, Islam is secretly taking over the world, Obama, a centrist technocrat, is really a socialist just waiting to unleash his secret agenda... etc. etc.

Republicans know "the truth," and rest of us are either dupes of liberal-elite lies, or else we're tricksy co-conspirators.

Glennis said...

The Tea Party is on average better educated and higher income than most Americans.

I would agree and disagree, on a couple of levels. 1) I think it is true that the leadership of the Tea Part is on average of higher income than most Americans. Why? because they're grifters.

2) I think that it is probably true that the leadership of the Tea Party is more educated than the average American - except I think the concentration is probably more in the Business School/Engineering and practical highly technical trades area. There aren't a lot of critical thinkers here.

3) I think the rank and file of the Tea Party are a bunch of poorly educated and economically frightened boobs - to be more unkind, suckers.

Xenos said...

Cruz is allegedly considered a supergenius, not just by teabaggers, but some liberals and reasonable conservatives as well. I just don't see it. I've seen this clown speak dozens of times throughout the past year or so, and he comes off as indistinguishable with Louis Gohmert.

At least the Newtster and boy genius, Paul Ryan could pass themselves off as (to quote Paul Krugman) "a stupid person's idea of a what a smart person sounds like", yet Cruz can't even manage that much.

Philo Vaihinger said...

"the Clintons had hoity-toity degrees, but Bill was mocked mostly for being no-'count trash"

As indeed he was. And is.

Philo Vaihinger said...

@ Geeese.

Too right about the burbs in the areas around DC, both Maryland and Va.

The cities are blue but the burbs where all the bureaucrats and defense related types live are bright red.

A relative living in Maryland spent a few thousands of dollars buying an assault rifle as the legislature was passing new gun control, yelling all the while about what commies they are and moving to Texas.

Victor said...

Aunt Snow already made my point for me.
Thank you, Auntie! :-)

Ten Bears said...

That is sooo... twentyith century.

You are welcome to join us.

No fear.