Who Are You Calling "Elite?"

Barbara Ehrenreich punctures the Rights favorite epithet in yesterday's New York Times. She uses the wingers' - ah - "distaste" for Michael Moore to illustrate just how they have, once again, succeeded in framing the discussion in ways that benefit them.

Beyond that, the idea of a liberal elite nourishes the right's perpetual delusion that it is a tiny band of patriots bravely battling an evil power structure. Note how richly the E-word embellishes the screeds of Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly and their co-ideologues, as in books subtitled "Rescuing American from the Media Elite," "How Elites from Hollywood, Politics and the U.N. Are Subverting America," and so on. Republican right-wingers may control the White House, both houses of Congress and a good chunk of the Supreme Court, but they still enjoy portraying themselves as Davids up against a cosmopolitan-swilling, corgi-owning Goliath.

I'm not sure who stole the idea from whom, but you'll recognize this same technique in the religious rights' appeals that believers are being overrun by hordes of agnostics, atheists and wiccans. The fact that Americans profess to be more religious now than at any time in history seems not to penetrate their propaganda organs, nor does it really matter; it provides them with a rallying cry and a chance to raise more money.

So who really comprises the "elite" in this country?

It's true that there are plenty of working-class people - though far from a majority - who will vote for Bush and the white-tie crowd that he has affectionately referred to as his "base." But it would be redundant to speak of a "conservative elite" when the ranks of our corporate rulers are packed tight with the kind of Republicans who routinely avoid the humiliating discomforts of first class for travel by private jet.

Thanks to Island Dave at Current Events Monitor - new to my blogroll - for pointing to this editorial.