Politics: What is an ‘elitist’?

last updated 8 January 2015

Forget “being called a criminal, a philanderer, or a terrorist sympathizer,” said Paul Farhi in The Washington Post. These days, the most incendiary accusation in American politics is the term “elitist.” Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has been trying to fight off that label since the golden-tongued orator was caught at a closed-door fund-raiser explaining how “bitter” small-town voters “cling” to guns and religion out of misplaced economic frustration. Conservative pundits immediately assailed him with the E-word, said The Economist in an editorial, which is rich considering that Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, et al., have made millions by stoking and exploiting the common man’s resentment of “the elites.” The last time we checked, America was a meritocracy. Aren’t we supposed to admire the elite and aspire to join them through study, skill, and hard work?

Money and success have nothing to do with it, said Dean Barnett in The Weekly Standard. The “elitism” Americans object to might more accurately be termed “elitist condescension.” This “smug superiority” is found everywhere on the left, and it’s an attitude Democratic candidates can’t seem to shake—or disguise. Like the sighing Al Gore and the droning John Kerry before him, Obama acts like a man duty-bound to come to the rescue of a nation whose “citizens are too stupid to look out for themselves.” Give Obama credit for knowing his audience, said Debra Saunders in the San Francisco Chronicle. While speaking to a roomful of Democratic fat cats here in San Francisco, Obama brilliantly expressed the howl of anguish at the core of liberal philosophy: “Oh why, oh why isn’t the rest of America as enlightened as we are?”

Obama’s remarks may have been “ill-chosen,” said Meghan Daum in the Los Angeles Times, but he’s vulnerable to the “elitism” charge only because he’s usually so eloquent. “Elitist,” these days, seems to have become a disparaging synonym for nuanced and intelligent—for anyone, in fact, who doesn’t reduce the world to moronic, us/them simplicity. The country’s real elite are rich and conservative, said Thomas Frank in The Wall Street Journal, and the growing aversion to thoughtful analysis suits this new ruling class just fine. Over the last decade, phony common men such as George Bush and Dick Cheney have turned this country from a “middle-class republic” to a “plutocracy,” while pretending to be “jes’ folks.” If you hear the term “elitist,” you can be sure the person hurling it is a phony, while the target is simply someone who believes this should be a fairer society.