Friday, October 24, 2008

What did he just say?

A recent post on Politico yesterday highlights elitism and its relativity to the campaign and its voters. In the interview between Brian Williams and Palin/ McCain, the Republican ticket gives interesting insight into their definition of the American elite.

Sarah Palin describes the elite as those "who think they are better than everyone else", apparently without regard to education, political power, or wealth, terms which are the characteristics of ALL American social elites. So, according to Palin, you don't have to be wealthy or educated, or politicians, to be part of the elite network of American culture, a notion completely untrue and manipulative in that it positions the Republican ticket as serving the interests of the middle class. She has clearly been taught how to be ignorantly vague in hypocritical subjects. These remarks further lead to the candidates using the media to denounce elitist "outsiders",  surely of which they aren't a part. 

Later, they directly contradict each other, Palin defining the term itself instead of its application, while John McCain claiming those arrogant elites (who?) have fundamental centralized locations in DC and NYC. What might that imply, Mr. McCain? I find it hard to understand how McCain claims not to be part of the elite if he has friends among them, and runs a campaign that spends 150K at Neiman Markus and Saks for the VP. Yes, those scummy elitist snobs who "think that they can dictate what they believe to America rather than let Americans decide for themselves". 

2 comments:

neall oliver said...

I actually misread the article. the 150K spent was for Palin, not Cindy McCain.

Kristen said...

Well, it's clear that Palin doesn't know what the "elite" refers to. I mean, the term is a bit slippery, but to be honest, even if she did have some sort of substantive interpretation, she would just end up incriminating her running mate. McCain was caught red-handed as an economic elite when he stumbled to remember how many houses he (his wife) owns. McCain also doesn't want to offend the elites, because though he is trying to make people believe he's taking an anti-elite wholly populist stance, the elite will ultimately vote for him and he wouldn't want to alienate them.