Every now and then I read a
book that alters my perspective. Fred
Siegel’s The Revolt Against the Masses: How Liberalism Undermined the Middle
Class is such a work. It makes it
clear that liberals have always been
vociferously hostile to democracy.
While I have long realized
that the “Democratic” party is misnamed, how far its roots lie from the egalitarian
traditions of the United States came into much sharper focus. Liberalism is—and was—a program designed by elitists
for elitists. It never was for, or
appreciative of, the little guy.
Although I have a fairly
large vocabulary, Siegel uses a word with which I was not familiar. It is “clerisy.” According to the dictionary, this is a
synonym for the literati. This is also
the clique that Siegel identifies as having launched and kept liberalism
afloat.
From its beginnings a
century ago, modern American liberalism has been dedicated to promoting
literary causes. Its chief proponents
were self-styled intellectuals who deemed themselves superior to the common
ruck. Convinced they were smarter,
kinder, and more sophisticated than ordinary persons, they could afford to look
down on them.
But more than this, they had
to persuade themselves that they were not really snobs. As a result, they styled themselves as
knights errant on the mission to save humanity from its own defects. They, albeit highbrows, would lead the
lowbrows into a brave new world of gentility and equality.
Of course, they did not
really mean this. Utterly convinced of
their own superiority, they were certain ordinary people could not govern
themselves. These boobs could not tell
the difference between a Kandinsky and a toad and therefore they could not be
trusted to make important decisions.
No, the clerisy would have
to make the decisions—even for the personal lives of those they were destined
to govern. Persons of lesser ability
would have to defer to their betters so that they could be saved from
themselves. Indeed, if these fools had
to be manipulated into complying, it was for their own good.
Isn’t this what Barack Obama
and his merry band of pseudo-democrats are attempting to do? Don’t they habitually assure us that
ObamaCare will rescue us from the mean-spirited insurance companies? Aren’t they confident our nation’s hegemonic
ambitions must be thwarted lest we corrupt the rest of the world?
And if we are not in favor
of these things, they must persuade us to go along. Should this require lies, lies will be
told. Should it entail misdirection, red
herrings will be trotted out. Should the
truth lead people to come to the wrong conclusions, it will be withheld from
them.
Why not? Ordinary Americans are regarded as so dim
that these forms of manipulation will slide by them. Obviously, young women can be persuaded that
conservatives hate them by repetitively making unsubstantiated charges of a
“war against women.” Clearly, the poor
can be rallied to legislation that will make them poorer if offered a few small
bribes.
Hence we witness the New
York Times, the bastion of elite Liberalism, a newspaper that prides itself on
providing “all the news that’s fit to print,” deciding not to cover the IRS
scandal. Ordinary people surely cannot
be trusted with knowledge of how Lois Lerner plotted to deny tax relief to conservative
organizations; ergo memos that reveal this are omitted.
Then there is Harry Reid who
tells the masses that accusations ObamaCare is hurting people are all
lies. Or Nancy Pelosi who opined that if
we were to find out what ObamaCare contained, congress would first have to pass
it—naturally assuming that average Americans would never read the bill.
As for the president
himself, he believes that his rhetoric can always get him out of a bad
scrape. Given the right honeyed words,
and the appropriate cadences, voters can even be persuaded that ObamaCare is
working. Failing that, he can divert
attention with lurid tales about why the climate-change sky is falling.
Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University
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