Our Revolting Elites
19th September 2012
Ross Douthat is disgusted. Unfortunately, he’s hung up on this whole ‘moral equivalence’ hobby-horse that he needs to ride if he’s going to keep his lucrative gig at the New York Times, so he’s pretty much a walking illustration of what’s wrong with America.
For rich Republicans, the stereotype is all about the money: They have it, other Americans don’t, and those resentful, entitled others might just have enough votes to wage class warfare and redistribute the donors’ hard-earned millions to the indolent and irresponsible.
Which is the stone cold truth that very few are willing even to admit to themselves, much less utter in public.
For rich Democrats, the stereotype is all about the culture wars: They think they’ve built an enlightened society, liberated from archaic beliefs and antique hang-ups, and yet these Jesus freaks in flyover country are mobilizing to restore the patriarchy.
Which is a fantasy ‘progressives’ have clung to since Teddy Roosevelt. It’s the equation of truth with fantasy that makes Douthat such a caricature of a columnists, a would-be David Brooks pandering to his paymasters by licking their hands while peeing on their legs in hopes that this somehow will be interpreted as ‘balance’.
Hence the category Axis of Drivel, which (besides being a clever pun) is pretty much an exact description of our modern information media.