Why Are the “Baddies” So Bad?
7th August 2023
A properly Biden-hating but Trump-critical friend remarked to me lately that “I just don’t know any intelligent, educated people who want to vote for Trump next year.” Well maybe so, but I am reminded of the revealing line from Adlai Stevenson in the 1956 presidential campaign, when an enthusiastic supporter ran up to him and breathlessly exclaimed, “Oh, Governor Stevenson! All educated people are for you!” To which Stevenson responded, “Yes, ma’am, but I need a majority.”
That’s a perfect expression of liberal elitism and disdain toward the broad spectrum of Americans who don’t attend elite universities or live in the trendiest neighborhoods or hold the “correct” views.
Which brings me to David Brooks’s mid-week column in the New York Times that people are still talking about days later, which is a much longer half-life for a column than is typical these days. His column is “What If We’re the Bad Guys Here?“, and the “bad guys” here are not the Deplorables that Times readers and other “enlightened” people blame for blocking all desirable progress, but the Times readership itself. Brooks doesn’t put it that directly, but that’s the clear subtext.