Stereotypes are Fun!

David Brooks today:

Palin is the ultimate small-town renegade rising from the frontier to do battle with the corrupt establishment. Her followers take pride in the way she has aroused fear, hatred and panic in the minds of the liberal elite. The feminists declare that she’s not a real woman because she doesn’t hew to their rigid categories. People who’ve never been in a Wal-Mart think she is parochial because she has never summered in Tuscany.

Look at the condescension and snobbery oozing from elite quarters, her backers say. Look at the endless string of vicious, one-sided attacks in the news media. This is what elites produce. This is why regular people need to take control.

I’m sure there are people who qualify as more culturally elitist than I am, but they probably work at MOMA. () So, perhaps I just have my cultural bias blinders up, but this reminds me of exactly no one that I’ve ever heard speak about Palin. “Condescension and snobbery oozing from elite quarters”? Why? Because people implied (correctly!) that she doesn’t know anything about things going on outside Alaska? And apparently inside it, as well? Brooks says that Palin doesn’t have the kind of experience that is needed to run the country (it turns out that it’s hard), but can’t we put this nonsense about Tuscany away? If there were any Democratic politicians – or even progressive commentators as prominent as David Brooks – out there implying that people who vote Republican walked around in their overalls and straw hats, barefooted and carrying a jug of moonshine, we’d never hear the end of it. So why is it alright to accuse progressives and “elites” of being chardonnay sipping, effete, condescending pricks? This “real” America nonsense is irritating me. I don’t think Palin is qualified for the job – and yet, I’ve never been to Tuscany. I feel like I’m missing out on the finer things.

Meanwhile, Jeeves, I shall take my tea in the sunroom.