Class and Sarah Palin
Ross Douthat on Sarah Palin:
That last statistic is a crucial one. Palin’s popularity has as much to do with class as it does with ideology. In this sense, she really is the perfect foil for Barack Obama. Our president represents the meritocratic ideal — that anyone, from any background, can grow up to attend Columbia and Harvard Law School and become a great American success story. But Sarah Palin represents the democratic ideal — that anyone can grow up to be a great success story without graduating from Columbia and Harvard.
I think the implicit idea here that the real class struggle in the United States is between graduates of fancy colleges and graduates of less-fancy colleges is pretty blinkered. Consider the Census Department’s information on educational attainment in the United States of America:
As you can see, less than a third of the population has a bachelor’s degree. But both of Sarah Palin’s parents belong to that educational upper class. And so does Palin herself. Meanwhile, I think it’s telling that Douthat’s idea of a counterpoint to Obama’s Ivy pedigree is Palin rather than, say, Joe Biden of the University of Delaware and the Syracuse University College of Law. Biden strikes me as an excellent example of the fact that a person can attend some not-so-fancy universities and yet be both enormously successful and widely acknowledged to be a smart person with a command of the issues. Palin, by contrast, is someone who Douthat acknowledges needs more time “to bone up on the issues.”
And that is the key to people’s complaint with Palin; not that she attended North Idaho College but that she ran for Vice President and spoke out on a range of issues without seeming to understand any of them. That’s a big deal, and it’s not mere snobbery to point out that it’s a big deal.
Meanwhile, John Sides points out that educational attainment has relatively little impact on public approval of Palin:
When you consider that college graduates and people without bachelor’s degrees typically disagree on political issues, there’s nothing noteworthy about this rather small gap. College graduates are somewhat less conservative on culture war issues than non-graduates, so you would expect them to be less friendly to cultural conservative politicians irrespective of their personal qualities.
111 Responses to “Class and Sarah Palin”
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July 6th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Well put, Matt. I think you’ve exposed the fact that Douthat is using “educational attainment” as a euphemism for “intelligence.” Douthat is implying that Palin proves that a stupid person can succeed in America. Of course, that would be rude to say, and it would also look bad for the conservative movement in general (who wants to be the champion of stupidity as a virtue?), so Douthat said “education” instead.
July 6th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Is Biden “widely acknowledged to be a smart person”? The Veep, personally, seems to have a lot of issues, as they say, over his IQ.
From a 1988 NY Times article by E.J. Dionne on Joe Biden that reads like a transcript from the old “Mr. Show” comedy series, which was a sort of American Monty Python. Bob Odenkirk and David Cross often appeared as characters uncomfortably apologizing for not being totally accurate in their previous statements:
To clear up the remaining issue, we can only hope that “Frank” will now emerge from his 20 years of obscurity to challenge the VP to see who gets the highest score on a free Tickle online IQ test.
July 6th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Douthat thinks dumb people should be able to succeed in public life. This is a transparently self-serving argument.
July 6th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
widely acknowledged to be a smart person with a command of the issues
Are you talking about Joe Biden the Vice President? The guy who supposedly is a constitutional law professor and yet didn’t even know the difference between Article I and Article II of the US Constitution? That Joe Biden? Haha. Only in lalaland of DC is “being elected to the US Senate over and over” somehow equated with “a smart person with a command of the issues”, even though all of the available evidence is to the contrary.
In any event, this idea that “class” is defined primarily by whether a person has graduated from college is moronic. By Matthew’s measure, Bill Gates is lower class.
July 6th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
George Bush also makes the case. He has a degree from a fancy university and his lack of curiousity and inability to articulate his thoughts are astounding. In addition to looking at the candidates, I think we need to look at their teams. David Plouffe transformed presidential elections–and I am pretty sure he dropped out of college to work on campaigns full time. What does that tell you? Smart people that work hard can succeed in this country–regardless of where they went to school. Not so smart people, however, probably need some help from family ties or reality television to succeed.
July 6th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Palin played the victim card for being criticized for being proud of being stupid. She turned her lack of international experience, for instance, into being proud of not “backpacking across Europe.” Lots of middle-class kids go to Europe. But only the cracker queen proudly declared herself pure, untravelled, and ignorant. The message played well in Real America.
That’s not a class issue, it’s a cultural one. Palin epitomizes the parochial, paranoid, stupid white trash the GOP has exploited for thirty plus years.
The GOP’s problems began when they started letting these people into leadership positions in the party. Tom DeLay should have been a backbencher, not Speaker. Katherine Harris was shown her place, after she’d served her purpose. When the Gentlemen start short-circuiting the Learned in order to co-opt the Mob directly, the model breaks down.
July 6th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
The gratuitous attacks on Biden are of course irrelevant to MY’s argument, since his argument is not “Biden is smart” but “Graduating from the U of D hasn’t done anything to prevent Biden from being perceived as smart.”
July 6th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Well Britney Spears is a sort of success story, and she didn’t go to Columbia or Harvard. So I guess Douthat is right.
Of course, whether you want Britney Spears running your country is another matter…
July 6th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
In defense of the VP – “Mr. Biden, who attended the Syracuse College of Law and graduated 76th in a class of 85, acknowledged: ”
Stupid is as stupid does and I’d like to know where the kid who graduated first is now?
July 6th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Chuckles needs to wait a few more months (or years) before saying that Palin is a great success story. She just bailed on her biggest gig and we have no real idea why. She could end up anywhere from jail to Fox News to back on the fishing boat.
July 6th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
As opposed to George W. Bush, who didn’t know that there was an Article I?
I’ll take Biden’s gaffes and general politician’s sliminess over incurious retards like Bush and Palin any day.
July 6th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
When I was growing up people referred to people like Palin in that brutaly dismissive term: trailer trash. Yes, it’s judgmental, cruel and elitist. Yet apt. Put a cigarette in her lips and a banjo player on her front porch and John Boorman would conjure up a few Oscars. Rubberneckers everywhere thank the gods for someone like Palin.
July 6th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
In re Al and JM’s definitions of “class” … we could save ourselves a lot of breath if we just admitted up front that definitions of class in the US are highly ambiguous and contested.
Some people have the impression that “class” = “income bracket.” Other people use it to define someone’s function in the economy, rather than wealth; while other people treat it as an all-purpose term for social status.
We could debate that semantic question. But where MY’s post is concerned the point is narrower — MY is simply showing that Douthat’s definition of class is way too narrow. And however we use the word, we ought to be able to agree on that.
July 6th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
The Palin fanboy extroidinaire, Ross Douchehat, has struck again. But seriously, I’d argue that douchehate has a chubby for palin.
July 6th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
So, Americans cringe at the prospect of Britney Spears running the nation? Color me skeptical. I’ve seen her string together several sentences in a far more lucid fashion than George Bush managed in all of eight years of trying.
July 6th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
It clearly isn’t an issue of “class”. Back before the conservative movement disingenuously disowned him, they said the same things about George W. Bush that they said about Palin. It’s this idea that conservatives are about common sense, simple American ideas that anyone can understand, while liberals are a bunch of meritocratic elitist snobs who look down on conservatives and their ideas. Essentially, it’s classic right-wing anti-intellectualism.
Palin also plays on some peripheral resentments as well– for instance, a lot of the discourse of pro-life women is dedicated to the idea that urban liberal hipster women who endorse and live the sexual revolution look down on women who save it for marriage, have lots of children, and have a 1-earner family where the wife stays at home and takes care of the children. Palin basically embodies that (even though she lives in a 2 career family herself).
At bottom, where liberals see tolerance– I don’t particularly think much of creationists, people who think God condemned homosexuality, and people who think global warming is a hoax, but I think they have every right to hold those beliefs if they wish to– this type of conservative sees a bunch of people who think they are smarter. And thus acting like a simpleton becomes a credential for higher office– whether the person actually went to fancy schools (like Bush did) or not (like Palin). Joe Biden doesn’t act like a simpleton, so he doesn’t appeal to them.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
I dunno.
How long has Obama’s mother’s family been in America?
Bush and Palin = really old line, establishment WASP families. Obama, well, not so much. I dunno about Biden, though.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
The Biden fellow may be an example of a lot of things but I’ll never get the past the fact of his enormous responsibility for the gutting of middle class bankruptcy protections which in my view makes him ineligible to be part of any Democratic administration let alone next-in-line for the presidency.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
To Al and the flaming nutcase racist, we are talking about reasonble people here, not nitwit trolls and racist morons. What those people think of Biden is less important than the threadcount of the sheets in the Lincoln Bedroom.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
JM, of course it’s a class issue. People resent kids who had a chance to ‘backpack’ across Europe because most kids never had that chance. Without that resentment, Palin’s schtick doesn’t really have much oomf.
Class isn’t really that ‘ambigious’. Thats something people say to avoid talking about it. Reality is, everyone pretty much knows what ‘class’ they are in. Douhat is simply trying to define class in such a way as it can not actually be defined, as something that has absolutely nothing to do with family or wealth.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
I suspect that chart is skewed because the college educated population is disproportionately white, and Palin has almost no support among nonwhite groups. That is, if you subdivide the chart into college educated whites vs. HS (or less) educated whites, I suspect you would see a big difference.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
I’ve always thought that Biden was not-smart: because that’s the way he acts (and, unfortunately, talks) every day. Palin is also not smart – it’s not either/or.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
So it is crucially important to the “democratic ideal” that the Horatio Alger myth kicks in after college and not before?
Generally, of course this column is an incoherent mess. That is what inevitably happens when the GOP’s partisan hacks set themselves to the impossible mission of defending Sarah Palin.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Palin is, whatever you think of her, very American. Meritocracy is all well and good, and it does play a somewhat higher role in US history than in the history of some other countries, but where we really hang our distinctiveness hat is the notion that the person who doesn’t really know much has a privileged view and a claim to authority precisely by virtue of not knowing much. By not visiting Europe Palin’s views are unsullied; by not being an ordained minister any number of people have unsullied religious visions; by not even reading the newspaper to which he sends incessant letters to the editor, the crank has an unsullied and authoritative prescription for everything.
Palin is that visionary, that crank. No wonder she resonates with so many people. She’s living the American Dream.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
define class in such a way as it can not actually be defined, as something that has absolutely nothing to do with family or wealth.
Class in America has much to do with educational achievement. Elite educational credentials are like titles of nobility were back in the middle ages. Back then, even the lowest and poorest noble was of a higher social class than the wealthiest merchants.
Matt making (what do you think 90k?) will always feel that his Harvard degree puts him in a higher class than the software salemen making 850k who graduated from Beer State University.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
I hate to be a douche about it
but so far discussion on this thread has really only revealed that lots of otherwise smart Americans don’t have the analytic vocabulary they need to think carefully about different kinds of class distinction.
For instance, @16, Dilan Esper is describing resentments that actually do have something to do with one aspect of class — which you might call cultural status. The perception that “liberals are a bunch of meritocratic elitist snobs” is, precisely, a form of class resentment. It’s not based on wealth; it’s based on the fact that dichotomies like these
urban / rural
college-educated / not
coastal / fly-over
really do affect perceived status in the U.S. When conservatives play on this sort of resentment, they might be disingenuous, but they’re not making it up out of whole cloth. Nor is it just a matter of “lifestyle choice.” It’s a status system that does really exist, and that generates real resentment.
But MY is right that this really has nothing to do with whether or not you went to Columbia, which is a subtler point, probably of greater interest to Douthat than most Palin supporters.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
God, Douthat sucks. The only thing he has that Jonah Goldberg doesn’t is the insulation of youth (that is, not being tied to dumbassed opinions from before he was 20 or so, which is to say during the 90s) and a faster metabolism. But because he’s right-wing but not actually a fascist, he gets prime bloviation real estate. Sad.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
The snark here on Biden is cheap, uninformed, and laughable. He is, in fact, widely acknowledged to be very smart, thoughtful, and knowledgeable. Yes, he trips over his tongue a good bit, and yes, his enthusiasm sometimes outruns his word selection, but no one who knows him thinks him dumb or ignorant. That’s reserved for the Faux folks and their wingnut legions, very, very few of whom are smart, etc.
As for Palin, my first take on the title of your essay was that it must relate to her character. Because, as hard as I have tried to find some credit to give her, given the extraordinary situation she found herself in, based on the substance and style of the resignation speech I’ve concluded that she has no class at all.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
North Idaho U == Whittier College. Discuss.
(and yes, one is aware Tricky Dick went to Duke Law, but still, the analogy holds.)
My point is only is that this stuff is ooooolllllldddddd.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Palin is, whatever you think of her, very American.
“The pure products of America / go crazy–”
As Ted says, she’s walking, talking, chiselling, prolier-than-thou — the embodiment not so much of status anxiety as status neurosis.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Ted:
It may be that conservatives who buy into these resentments see it as an issue of social class, but I think you missed my point. George W. Bush is, by any reasonable definition, upper class, and his supporters (back when he had supporters) certainly were aware of that. So while the issue may be infused with class resentments, it isn’t, fundamentally, actually about social class. Rather, it’s about a set of ideas centered around the notion that people with knowledge and credentials are snobs, and that their ideas are dangerous and bad for America because they reject the common sense brought to the table by ordinary Americans. The Bible is more accurate than the beliefs of scientists. Simple notions of toughness, hard work, and commitment to family provide the real answers to our problems; the work of academics and policy wonks is suspect.
In other words, the core of it isn’t social class, even if it is often expressed in that language. The core of it is that knowledge is suspect, that expertise is dangerous, that intellectualism is snobbery.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
The unmentionable issue regarding Palin is that a 45 year old woman with five children hasn’t had time to think through all the national and international issues a President needs to have thought about. Her five children have taken up too much of her attention. In contrast, Margaret Thatcher once told my wife that she was glad she had had twins so she could get having babies over and done with and get back to work.
If Palin were a man, there’d be a wife to deal with the kids, so the Governor could get back to thinking about about non-family, non-local topics.
This is all totally obvious, but nobody is supposed to mention stuff like this anymore.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Hell, both the Yglesias and Douthat posts are “pretty blinkered.” We can probably all agree that the class divide in America hinges on some combination of wealth and education level. But details matter. And money and family connections trump education every time.
The big lie in Douthat’s article is the notion that the difference between meritocracy and democracy amounts to the difference between a fancy-pants Ivy League degree and a degree from a major state university or a preppy private school in flyover country. Only a myopic Ivy League grad could possibly believe that all of America’s elites go to the Ivy League, and romanticize the bootstrapping success of a little rich girl from the hinterlands.
I can assure you that every state in the union has wealthy children of doctors, lawyers, and businessmen, who graduate from public universities, and have every possible advantage in life except insider connections to high-powered jobs in Washington or New York. They grow up to be big fish in small or medium-sized ponds, make lots of money, donate to political campaigns, lay off their employees, bitch about taxes, and sometimes get themselves elected governor. They ARE the elite in the great majority of this country. They run much of our economy and political system.
To paraphrase Kaiser Soze, the greatest trick the Midwestern Elite ever pulled was convincing the media it doesn’t exist.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
And money and family connections trump education every time.
Eh, it would take a lot of money and some serious connections to get Goldman or McKinsey to hire you in spite of your degree from Beer State.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
Honestly, few people in the great middle section of this country know or care who Goldman and McKinsey are. You can get a high-paying job off Daddy’s connections from Beer State, parlay that into political connections in Mid-Size city, and get elected Governor.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Eh, it would take a lot of money and some serious connections to get Goldman or McKinsey to hire you in spite of your degree from Beer State.
Eh, LaFollette’s whole point was that there are elites who don’t work for Goldman or McKinsey.
I can assure you that every state in the union has wealthy children of doctors, lawyers, and businessmen, who graduate from public universities, and have every possible advantage in life except insider connections to high-powered jobs in Washington or New York. They grow up to be big fish in small or medium-sized ponds, make lots of money, donate to political campaigns, lay off their employees, bitch about taxes, and sometimes get themselves elected governor. They ARE the elite in the great majority of this country. They run much of our economy and political system.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
@31: your point about Bush is a good one, and I think we basically agree.
The question is whether “class” is a word that has a fixed meaning or is a matter of perception. You’re using the word as if it had a fixed meaning. GWB is “by any reasonable definition” upper class, although “conservatives who buy into these resentments” might — mistakenly — see him as a champion of a marginalized class identity.
That’s fair enough. I’m using the word “class” as a name for perceived status, so I’m not quite as inclined to distinguish “real” class from people’s perceptions about class. But I would still agree that GWB was a case of bait-and-switch, because the wealthy Yale-educated son of a President really doesn’t get to claim marginalization by any measure.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
It would take real effort for a smart person to graduate at the bottom of a bad law school. And yet Joe Biden needed to cheat to do that. Whatever he is, he isn’t intellectually gifted.
And yet for some reason Matt thinks he is.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
I think Ted at #26 (and some of the other comments above) is basically correct. Class, as used in this conversation, has something to do with education, and something to do with wealth, but also as much to do with cultural signifiers – “latte-drinking, Volvo-driving, sushi-eating, New York Times-reading…”
July 6th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
The fact is that Ms. Palin is a moron and an ignoramus. Despite the fact that her father is a high school biology teacher, Ms. Palin is a young earth creationist. By the way, when Vice-President Biden was asked about creationism, his reply was pithy in the extreme, “It’s malarkey.” Right on Joe.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
You can get a high-paying job off Daddy’s connections from Beer State, parlay that into political connections in Mid-Size city, and get elected Governor.
And despite being a Governor or a Senator people like Matt would still think they are superior. I thinks that’s part of the point – not matter how rich and powerful you become as a result of building up your chain of Dunk n’ Donuts franchises or building up daddy’s chain of muffler shops – you’ll never overcome your lack of a name brand degree.
Again, they are like the titles of nobility of old – no matter how successful a merchant becomes, he will always be ranked lower than a noble.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Douthat’s shtick is the same tired Republican deceit: That a political faction totally devoted to be whores for the richest 1 percent of the population are somehow Tribunes of the downtrodden.
The Republicans constantly try to divide this country’s population along any of several line –race, ethnic group, income, region etc
They have to constantly play off one group against another on the basis of imaginary grievances because that is the only way they can get the votes of the stupid people who they fuck every day.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
If you gave Biden and Palin an IQ test, they’d probably get about the same number right, especially because Biden, who is 22 years older, is well into his cognitive decline phase. (Don’t be surprised if Obama drops the 70-year-old Biden from the ticket in 2012 for being too much of a motormouth with decreasing control over what he spills into a microphone.) However, if you gave Biden and Palin a test on current events, no doubt Biden would do much better: he’s a lot more interested in foreign and national affairs than Palin is.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
Uh, Palin’s first child was born seven months and 21 days after she married Todd. And her daughter … oh, nevermind.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Let’s not forget that back around 2004, Matt Yglesias fell hook, line, and sinker for that obvious hoax chart that he promoted on the Internet claiming that states that voted Democratic had vastly higher average IQs than states that voted Republican (e.g., Connecticut’s average IQ was 113, while Utah’s was 87):
http://www.isteve.com/iqhoax.htm
July 6th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
He is, in fact, widely acknowledged to be very smart, thoughtful, and knowledgeable
By whom, though? I mean, to begin with I have yet to see anyone here step up and say that Biden *actually is* smart, thoughtful and knowledgeable; it’s like you want to claim that hey, *we* all know Biden isn’t all that, but somewhere there’s this legion of rubes he managed to fool. Even if it’s true, that’s pretty faint praise, inasfar as you could say the same thing about a lot of pols; it’s like praising Biden for his success at marketing himself.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Douthat is following what seems to be the emerging conservative party line on Palin which says that: Yes, Palin is unfit for high office. But only conservatives reject her for the right reasons. Conservatives reject her because she’s a dunce who doesn’t know what she is talking about and doesn’t care. Liberals “hate” her because she’s one of “those people” who went to a state college and shops at Wal Mart. This is how conservatives get to have their cake and eat it too. They get to throw Palin under the bus but don’t have to admit that liberals were right about her unfitness for high office all along. And best of all, conservatives don’t have to abandon the culture war against the “liberal elites” that created Palinism in the first place.
July 6th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
HOw much longer do you think Douthat will have that prime real estate to play in? He hasn’t written a remotely interesting column yet. They are too silly (and often meandering) to go to the trouble of disagreeing with.
Maybe the better question is how much longer will that real estate Douthat is occupying be considered prime.
July 6th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Uh, Palin’s first child was born seven months and 21 days after she married Todd. And her daughter … oh, nevermind.
That’s actually a rather funny aspect of that issue. It isn’t that pro-life women, for the most part, are actually chaste or come from chaste parts of the country. It’s that they think that pro-choice “elites” from the coast look down on their religious values.
The funny thing is that what is actually happening isn’t that at all– it’s that pro-choicers tend to have a view of sex that is firmly grounded in the reality based community, and abortion rights (including abortion rights for people like Sarah Palin and her family) fit firmly into that worldview, whereas pro-life women often talk about abortion policy as if pro-choicers’ main motivation is repudiating their beliefs and values about sex rather than ensuring that women have choices.
Again, though, that’s a peripheral button that Palin presses. The main one is simplistic common sense “real Americans” against credentialed elitist intellectuals.
July 6th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Dilan,
And, the state with the lowest divorce and teen pregnancy rate is Massachusetts. The more religious/christianist states all have much higher rates of teen pregnancy and divorce. They talk the talk but don’t walk the walk – or so it seems. Another element of the tension, no doubt.
July 6th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
Al — I think Ted at #26 (and some of the other comments above) is basically correct. Class, as used in this conversation, has something to do with education, and something to do with wealth, but also as much to do with cultural signifiers – “latte-drinking, Volvo-driving, sushi-eating, New York Times-reading…”
I think that IS the way class has come to be understood in America in recent years, but I would argue that this is a bastardization of the concept. Class divisions were traditionally understood to be distinctions of birthright, family money, access to political power, and mannerisms that were handed down in prep schools or finishing schools. The Boston elite may have looked down on the Toledo elite for being hopelessly out of fashion, but that distinction was understood as cosmopolitan versus provincial, not upper class versus middle class.
And, of course, the inland parts of America had their own finishing schools, cotillions, and debutante balls, their own prep schools, their own class divisions, etc. The change in post-war America is that the many of the old class markers no longer apply. No one goes to cotillion anymore, and the elites are as likely to get the penthouse seats at the NASCAR race as they are to go to the opera. Wealthy elites have embraced their provincialism as a class marker to convince the actual middle class that they’re more “authentic” than people who had fewer privileges in life… but eat sushi, sip lattes, watch foreign films, and actually give a shit about whether the government is run by people who know what they’re talking about.
July 6th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Re jmo at 41: “And despite being a Governor or a Senator people like Matt would still think they are superior. I thinks that’s part of the point – not matter how rich and powerful you become as a result of building up your chain of Dunk n’ Donuts franchises or building up daddy’s chain of muffler shops – you’ll never overcome your lack of a name brand degree.”
—————
That is a crock of shit. I’ve known Harvard graduates who’ve had to struggle their entire life to make a middle class living.
In contrast, many of the richest billionaires on Forbes 400 list are college dropouts.
In my son’s 2007 class at Phillips Exeter, most of the kids were going on to non-Ivy League colleges — and weren’t sobbing as they did so. One scion of a wealthy Middle Eastern family chose Babson College in Boston — which is rated as tops in the country for instruction in entrepreneurship.
The Ivy League is largely for low-risk middle to upper-middle class careers. Doctors, Lawyers, government, Fortune 500 middle management, etc– although an undergraduate Ivy degree is no guarantee you will get into a top medical, business or law school.
Stock Brokers on Wall Street like Ivy degrees for the same reason that con artists like to dress well.
I wouldn’t sneer at those chain of donut shops, either. One friend of my son had a mother who was a Dupont and whose grandfather was a farmer in Florida. Sounds modest until you realize Grandpa has around 100,000 acres or so outside a Florida city. His father owns a chain of restaurants in the Midwest –which are kinda immune to Chinese/Indian competition.
The bankers have their own lists of Who’s Who in each state. They laugh at the Ivy League myth.
Yeah, sometimes an Ivy Leaguer will climb to the CEO position. But anyone who tracks the S&P 500 knows major corporations are dying off every year.
July 6th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Don,
I couldn’t possibly agree with you more. The issue is your failed Harvard educated writer, who’s making 60k a year writing grant for some useless non-profit, is still going to hold himself above the farmer with the 100,000 acres or the biologist doing ground breaking research at the University of Wisconsin.
July 6th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
I am guessing that the average “talking head” on tv or the internet has ussally had very little contact with the average American.So when someone like Mrs Palin comes along it is very easy for them to see her as the embodiment of blue collar America.Frankly i think of her as the cartoon version of blue collar America.
And for the record i do think that she is entirely stupid.But she is extremly incurious.It has nothing to do with class.You do not have to be rich to read a book or a newspaper.Instead of trying to ban books in her hometown she should have tried to read some.
Despite the fact that i am conservative in my politics [or maybe because].I lost all respect for Mrs Palin when she said that she had been too focussed on state government to focus on the war in Iraq.
That statement made her unqaulified to be elected to any position as far as i am concerned.
July 6th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Frankly i think that all of the republicans that are pretending the Mrs Palin is the embodiment of white blue collar America are insulting blue collar Americans whether they realise it or not.
July 6th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
I thinks that’s part of the point – not matter how rich and powerful you become as a result of building up your chain of Dunk n’ Donuts franchises or building up daddy’s chain of muffler shops – you’ll never overcome your lack of a name brand degree.
And like I keep saying, this may well be true in Manhattan, but it doesn’t change the fact that the scions of the muffler tycoon are part of the elite in their own town. They’re going to go to some small, ritzy college in their home state that you’ve never heard of but everyone in their home state has, join the country club or dock their yacht at the marina on the lake, rub shoulders with the people who own the big law firm in town, donate a metric shit-tonne of cash to the Republican Party, and have far more wealth and power than nearly all of the “elitists” you’d find strolling around Union Square with their Strand bag in one hand and their latte in the other.
And the midwestern and southern elites look down on Ivy League preppies far more than the reverse is true, because as Matt and Ross ably demonstrate, many of the Ivy League preppies are only marginally aware that the provinces have an elite class at all. To the extent that the cluelessness and insularity of the Manhattan elite causes the Toledo elite to feel looked down upon, so much the better for Republican wedge politics, so much the worse for the rest of us.
July 6th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
The Ivy League is largely for low-risk middle to upper-middle class careers. Doctors, Lawyers, government, Fortune 500 middle management…Yeah, sometimes an Ivy Leaguer will climb to the CEO position
I’ve very surprised to hear you say that. Most liberals are afraid to admit that most CEO’s come from modest backgrounds similar to that of Ken Lewis – raised in a single parent family, graduate of Georgia State, no wealth or family connections at all.
July 6th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
“The issue is your failed Harvard educated writer, who’s making 60k a year writing grant for some useless non-profit, is still going to hold himself above the farmer with the 100,000 acres or the biologist doing ground breaking research at the University of Wisconsin.”
So what? The farmer and the biologist are, in all likelihood, also going to look down on the failed writer, either because he isn’t successful, or because he’s a latte-sipping liberal instead of a “real American”, or because he’s a preppy douchebag, or what have you. None of them would hire the guy based on his degree. So why, exactly, does this largely-imagined class divide bother you so much?
July 6th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
The UWisc professors are drawn from the national elite of researchers and grad students, many of whom have gone to Harvard. The State University system in America has actually been extremely beneficial for its role in dispersing “national elites” all over the country in search of professorships, which has been good for everyone, I think.
Jmo, while you are close to being right (LaFollette Progressive has a better understanding the of dynamic), class is fundamentally not about how much money you make. That is ephemeral. For example, you would find the books, interests, and other possessions from Wealthy Salesman from Beer State University to be much different than what you see in Matthew Yglesias’s condo, in much the same way that Wealthy Manhattan Investment Banker and Wealthy Beer State Salesman would have vast differences in interests, habits, and possessions– that is why we call it differences in “class” rather than differences in wealth.
Not only that, but when Mr. Wealthy Harvard-educated Investment Banker has a not-very-bright child, that child is going to end up going to a different set of second or third-tier universities than Mr. Beer State’s not-very-bright children. Mr. Harvard Investment Banker’s child might have a slight leg up on the final outcome of his career because his parents might have a better understanding of economic and social dynamics of wealth in the United States (and will be set up to marry someone from a similar class at that college), but the lower levels of economic expense and stress in Mr. Beer State’s home area will mean that his children will be able to maintain their local-elite social and economic connections even if they have lower earning potential.
Another point not mention by LaFollette Progressive is that the local elites can have more of a stranglehold on the local economies and opportunities, which is why it is a typical story to hear about small town ambitious midwesterners coming to “coastal elite” cities to make their way in life.
July 6th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Most liberals are afraid to admit that most CEO’s come from modest backgrounds similar to that of Ken Lewis – raised in a single parent family, graduate of Georgia State, no wealth or family connections at all.
I call bullshit. Most CEOs come from outside the Ivy League, and that’s hardly beside the point I’m trying to make. Most of the country’s elite does not have prestigious college degrees.
But if you can demonstrate that a majority of Fortune 500 CEOs came from single-parent families or had “no family connections at all”, I’ll eat a shoe.
July 6th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Please. We’re just not impressed with anecdotal evidence that’s belied by the overall data: social mobility in the US is inferior to most of the rest of the developed world.
But Zippy from Dirtsville made it, and you can too, by gum!
July 6th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Biden’s a dope I and dread the possibility of him ever becoming president. I voted for him since the other possibility was worse: Palin and McCain are both even bigger dopes than Biden. Palin, in fact, is so stupid as to undermine any vestige I once had of faith in Democracy. What a weird species we are.
July 6th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
I love how right-wingers are constantly on the prowl for ‘working-class’ credentials among their own ranks.
Frankly, if you spend all your time in office representing the interests of the rich and powerful, it really doesn’t matter if you were were born to a bunch of sharecroppers and went to a one-room school house.
Naturally, if you look at who actually supports the GOP in election after election, you’ll see that people with modest backgrounds are about as numerous in their ranks as people from non-white ethnic groups and those under 40.
So sure, having someone in a leadership position who never went to Columbia or Harvard may be something of a phenomena for the GOP but incessantly pointing it out, like Douthat does, is merely the price that aristocracy pays to our democratic way of life.
July 6th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Not only that, but when Mr. Wealthy Harvard-educated Investment Banker has a not-very-bright child, that child is going to end up going to a different set of second or third-tier universities than Mr. Beer State’s not-very-bright children.
One minor point – one of the biggest class differences is how each group deals with children with low academic ability. Harvard Investment Banker is far more likely to move heaven and earth to ensure his child does well academically – be it tutors, camps, special schools, phsycologists, Ritalin, etc. Beer State salesmen is far more likely to be of the “the world needs ditch digger too” school of thought.
July 6th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
JM,
I’d be interested to hear your theories on why Asian and Caribbean immigrants have done so well while African Americans and Latino immigrants have done poorly.*
* And no, I don’t think it has anything to do with genetic differences.
July 6th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
The thing is that the parents from Harvard each making $60,000 – $80,000 per year at a non-profit are going to react similar to the Harvard-educated Investment Banker, as far as their income can afford. That is why issues of class and culture play in to these differences much more than the mere issue of who made more money last year.
Mr. Beer State is resentful because a couple with middle-class incomes doesn’t take his opinions seriously. The couple with middle class incomes is wondering why they are being tarred as anti-American “elites” merely because they have a certain value system with respect to how they view the value of education and things like traveling and wonder why Mr. Beer State thinks he’s part of the “salt of the earth” who cares about “real Americans” when he never has to worry about money.
You also have a major blindspot here, jmo: plenty of people from Matthew Yglesias’s “class” went to Beer State: because it’s a function of culture, not something bestowed upon you by virtue of having an Ivy League degree. They left for the east coast when they realized that they couldn’t get an interesting job or start a business without going through the rotary club run by Mr. Beer State. The “elite” grant writers you mock for not admiring Mr. Beer State Salesman have themselves gone to Beer State but moved to Washington to work for a think tank. But in your mind, they’re the “elites” and Mr. Beer State “understands the plight of normal Americans.”
July 6th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Matt, you’re right though that Obama and Palin are foils. A better contrast would be between the American Dream vs. the American Fantasy. The American Dream is the story of how equal opportunity, combined with innate ability, hard work, and meritocratic competition is the path to success or at least a better future and a decent measure of happiness. The American Fantasy, on the other hand, is a kind of rags to riches story where little or no time, effort, and personal resources need be brought to bear to get from point A to point B. Instead, the American Fantasy is the classic Cinderella story, the person who wins the lottery, the victor on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” who gets lucky and takes home the whole million, the man or woman who is plucked from obscurity and becomes an overnight celebrity. The hero of the American Fantasy need have no innate ability and need not have worked a day in their life. In fact, it’s often the hero’s or heroine’s complete absence of merit that makes this particular fantasy so emotionally compelling.
Sarah Palin is a classic example of the American Fantasy narrative. Think about it. An obscure first term governor of minimal intelligence and almost no accomplishments under her belt is plucked from obscurity by a rich and powerful benefactor and thrust into the national spotlight. Overnight, she becomes the talk of the nation, icon to a struggling movement, and the most captivating politician in decades. There’s even talk that she should be the one to complete the task that her original benefactor (McCain) was chosen to perform. Yet she can’t put her past completely behind her, as no heroine in this kind of narrative can. Her detractors from back home are out to get her, as are the powerful rivals of her original benefactor, rivals whose elitist attitudes blind them to the heroine’s innate virtue. In the end, the heroine of the American Fantasy must sever ties to those she left behind, and must prove to all that she is deserving of having been plucked from obscurity in the first place.
We’re living in an era where the opportunities to live out the American Dream have been disappearing at an alarming rate. The result is that American Fantasy has come to dominate America’s culture and media landscape in the past 15 years. Most reality TV and game shows are a derivative of the American Fantasy narrative. Sarah Palin’s emergence on the national scene is just the latest example. In contrast to the emergence of Barack Obama — whose story has been democratic, meritocratic, and a model example of the American Dream — Sarah Palin’s story has been none of those things. And when you acknowledge the existence of the American Fantasy as a contrasting narrative to the American Dream, it starts making a lot more sense why Obama and Palin are perfect foils for each other.
July 6th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
[...] college, economy, graphs, history About 30% of Americans have a bachelor’s degree. Most of my friends not only have [...]
July 6th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Both Obama and Palin have at least an upper 30% family background, must likely far further up. So their stories are both meaningless for most Americans.
July 6th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
@32
The unmentionable issue regarding Palin is that a 45 year old woman with five children hasn’t had time to think through all the national and international issues a President needs to have thought about. Her five children have taken up too much of her attention. In contrast, Margaret Thatcher once told my wife that she was glad she had had twins so she could get having babies over and done with and get back to work.
If Palin were a man, there’d be a wife to deal with the kids, so the Governor could get back to thinking about about non-family, non-local topics.
Gee, thanks for injecting a note of sexism into this thread. I’m glad you informed us that women with 5 children are unable to think about issues, whereas apparently men with 5 children have no problem doing so thanks to that good ole division of labor. Too bad you didn’t spend more time explaining what her age has to do with it, since you made a point to mention that (is 45 too young or too old? so confusing). I’ll leave aside your implication that “non-family” issues are what a governor should really be thinking about. (Health care? Wages? Economy? Family issues.)
July 6th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
have themselves gone to Beer State but moved to Washington to work for a think tank.
I was under the impression that think tanks and the rest of the wonkisphere are very credential oriented. I find it hard to believe you could get a job at a think tank armed with a degree from Beer State.
July 6th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
Beer State salesmen is far more likely to be of the “the world needs ditch digger too” school of thought.
Anecdote-driven stereotypes are awesome. Mine follows.
I’ve never lived in a community where the great majority of the public was more interested in moving heaven and earth to get their children a good education than when I lived in a suburb of Indianapolis that was locally notorious for being “elitist.” Only a handful of those kids went to the Ivy League, but a great whopping number of them went to one of Indiana’s two major public research institutions, or to several private colleges that were highly respected locally. Going to college was an expectation that was drilled in from elementary school on, and that expectation paid off.
And of course, many of those kids came from wealthy, successful families and most of those went on to be doctors, lawyers, and corporate bigwigs. Nowadays many of them eat sushi and sip lattes (although they were not on the leading edge of the trends.) And the entire county is still so solidly run by the Republican Party that the Democrats rarely bother to field candidates.
Maybe Harvard Business Guy looks down on these people. More likely he has no idea that these people exist. But they do exist, they have considerable political influence at all levels of government, and they’re pretty goddamned elite by any meaning of the word that I’m familiar with.
Are they “middle class” whereas failed Harvard writer is “upper class”? Not in any meaningful sense. It may flatter the self regard of both sides to perpetuate that myth, and it certainly benefits the conservative movement to do so. But it’s not a very useful lens for viewing any aspect of American politics except the marketing.
July 6th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
Zon’s comment is a good example of how political correctness makes people stupid.
July 6th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
Really, the notion that people are marked for life by the place they got their bachelors’ degrees is hooey. At any rate, it doesn’t hold in academia — and if anyone ought to care what’s written on that damn piece of sheepskin, it ought to be us. But as soon as you *do* anything significant, what matters is what you’ve done, not where you got your degree.
At any rate, jmo, I can promise you that no one in academia respects a failed Harvard-educated anything more than we respect someone doing good work at U Wisconsin. That is so, so, so far from being true.
July 6th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
@73
Zon’s comment is a good example of how political correctness makes people stupid.
Thanks, Steve, calling me stupid really contributed a lot to the discourse.
You’re right, objecting to sexist comments is so unbearably, tiresomely PC. Not something one would expect to see on a “progressive” blog.
July 6th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
Barack Obama grew up with a single mom, who was on welfare for part of his life, and then lived with his grandparents. THAT is an up-by-your-bootstraps story.
Comfortably middle class people, like Sarah Palin, achieving success isn’t a demonstration that “everybody” can achieve greatness. It’s a demonstration that being middle class is nice.
July 6th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
“I find it hard to believe you could get a job at a think tank armed with a degree from Beer State.”
The “Beer State” joke has passed its freshness date.
Are we talking about second-tier state colleges that have a direction in their name? Or are we talking about flagship state colleges? I hate to break it to you, but a large number of wonks in DC come from schools like Wisconsin or Michigan or Georgia Tech. A conspiracy of tech geeks from the University of Illinois is taking over one of the more prominent think tanks in DC at this very moment.
This is because in just about any graduate field other than business or law, where you went to school matters less than who you worked with. And there are highly respected departments and faculty members at many schools that are not considered to be very impressive on the whole.
July 6th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
Go Illini!
July 6th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Ross’s distinction between the meritocratic versus democratic ideals to be strained and false.
Besides everyone being a moral and political equal, the democratic ideal is that positional goods be open to all and settled by fair competition for them. It doesn’t mean that any of us — no matter our character, talent, and acquired skills — can be president, just that we have a fair shot at it.
The meritocratic ideal then kicks in, so that those with the best relevant qualities get the job rather than being sunk by irrelevant qualities. The democratic and meritocratic ideals go hand in hand.
Ross thinks Palin has the required talent and character, but not the skills. So even in his rosy estimation of her, she’s not qualified for the job. But unwarranted criticism of the first two somehow sabotages the democratic ideal? Just doesn’t fly.
July 6th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
You know what amazed me most about the Palin family? Their reverse snobbery. Their amazingly expensive hobbies were somehow spun into the pastimes of just everyday folks. Competitive snowmobile racing, between the sleds, tools, trailer to haul everything and sleep in, and truck to tow it all, is easily $100,000 worth of gear. Hunting from an aircraft is about a grand worth of rifle, scope, ammo and gear, plus how ever many hundreds of dollars to charter the plane. Even a hockey mom should plan on shelling out $500 or more for skates , sticks, pads, uniform and gigantic duffel bag.
But the Palins are just ordinary folks like you and me, right?
July 6th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
@80: I remember someone explaining this well during the campaign. The thing is that those are hobbies that the Palin base would like to have. They’d like to be able to afford that boat and that snowmobile. So they look up to that lifestyle rather than resenting it.
Arugula is much cheaper than a snowmobile, but …
July 6th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
Are we talking about second-tier state colleges that have a direction in their name?
We’re talking about second tier state colleges and no name private schools.
July 6th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Taking a Marxist view of High School class struggle, I’d say that the Palin – Obama tension is similar to the Jock – Nerd tension we’re all familiar with. Palin = Dumb Jock – Obama = Smart Nerd.
July 6th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
“Biden strikes me as an excellent example of the fact that a person can attend some not-so-fancy universities and yet be both enormously successful and widely acknowledged to be a smart person with a command of the issues.”
Re the quote above, you have to be joking, right?? Biden’s gaffes are very well known and are far worse that Palin’s. I’m not even an American and I know that.
The classic that I remember is Biden saying that FDR came on television in 1930 to talk to the people about the New Deal. The only problem was FDR wasn’t President then and there was no television in those days.
Biden is a joke and to think he is only a heartbeat away from being the POTUS is a real scary thought.
You have to joking, right??
July 6th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Astrodem #67 nails it.
LaFollette Progressive makes some good points as well.
July 6th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
Biden makes factual mistakes like mixing up Article I and Article II, or citing the wrong year for FDR’s term of office. This is not admirable, but I don’t think this makes him stupid. A little dyslexic, maybe? Prone to blurting out stuff without thinking about it first?
Bush Jr. made some funny dyslexic malapropisms like “put food on your family” or “America is where wings take dream” , but I don’t think these made him stupid. (Some other things he did and said arguably could be put in the stupid category.)
Palin’s use of language is consistently ungrammatical and makes no sense. She can be categorized as stupid.
July 6th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
This is so fucking ludicrous. Palin’s popularity has to do with the way she looks, period. In spite of what she says and how she says it. Her education, her state, her family, etc. have practically nothing to do with it. It takes a guy like Douthat who is dead from the waist down to think it’s about class or ideology.
I mean, hold everything else constant — Alaska, Tod, the wayward daughters, Trig, etc — if she looked like Rosy O’Donnell, she’d be frying donuts in Anchorage.
Palin would be infinitely more popular if she had Hillary’s education, values, and political positions. Class explains NONE if it.
Thank god she’s so fucking stupid, relentlessly ignorant, and arrogant. She thinks those are god’s gift to her. They are actually god’s gift to us.
July 6th, 2009 at 7:04 pm
The democratic ideal is that, regardless of your conditions of birth, you can rise as far as your talent and efforts can take you. In higher ed terms, that means attending the best public university in your state, and graduating with distinction in a reasonable amount of time. It doesn’t mean that you get to be president even though you never really applied yourself to anything.
July 6th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
Don, the difference is that while Biden says screwy things pretty frequently, he can also have an intelligent discussion on the issues. Palin can’t do that second part.
Also, this was Biden’s actual quote. “When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, ‘Look, here’s what happened. ”
The only real gaffe in that sentence is the word television rather than radio. The stock market crashed several times between 1929-1945, and FDR did do regular fireside chats.
July 6th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
biden is smarter then most dems. he can read and write and
chew gum when he walks.but he dont look as good as palin.
maybe to the dems he does
July 6th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
Not sure where Ross is coming from here. Well, I’m sure of WHERE, but I still can’t get a grip on where he’s going …
“Real Americans” would love to have a beer with Harvard Grads like Bush, who don’t remind them every chance they get that they went to Harvard. (Unlike, say, Ross.) As if “passing” for a regular guy is somehow more “authentic”…
“Real Americans” want a sharp gal like Sarah (”grifter-smart,” in TBogg’s words), who doesn’t expect them to recall and process book learning to understand the points she’s trying to score. After all, a good many folks make a ton of money by being “smart,” rather than “educated.” Sarah gives her fans a visceral thrill, I suppose, of bringing one’s “betters” down a peg–the Margaret Dumont syndrome (she of the fusty doyenne roles in Marx Brothers’ movies). Plus Sarah’s hawt. So she’s “deeply superficial” on many levels. Which means that she’s even complex enough for a prat like Ross Douthat to admire, at least in the abstract.
But Ross probably brings a lot of baggage to this check-in counter, too, IMO: He may or not romantically idealize Caribou Barbie–and gals like Sarah definitely don’t end up with guys who punch at Ross’ weight class. Which means that there might be a bit of sexual bias/resentment there, too.
To Ross, I suspect, Sarah’s the apotheosis of the “democratic ideal” because she’s someone who can carry the standard for the reactionary Right, thus relieving Ross and his ilk the heavy lifting. She’s a Threepio unit: She can translate the elite’s agenda into an emotional and rhetorical vernacular that’s attractive to the great unwashed. She can say the crazy-ass, objectionable, borderline bigoted things that he cannot (at least not without squandering his elite opinion-maker credentials). But this symbiosis isn’t really the great leveler that it seems to be, because, when it all comes down to class, really, to Ross, she’s NOK,D.
Sorry to make this seemingly so full of ad-hominems, but I find Ross’s OpEd pieces to be so curdled, disingenuous, self-serving, and insincere that, after a while, I start to take it personally…
July 6th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
“Palin would be infinitely more popular if she had Hillary’s education, values, and political positions. Class explains NONE if it.”
Um, Granholm is better looking than Palin and, if she isn’t precisely the same as Hillary, isn’t notably different (Clinton went to Yale, Granholm went to Harvard, etc). Of course, Granholm can’t become President (she was born in Canada), but she isn’t particularly popular.
July 6th, 2009 at 10:42 pm
I fear for my country.
Prior to Sarah Palin’s appearance on the Hate Talk Express, it had never occurred to me that such a mediocre person would ever be elevated to a place on ANY presidential ticket.
In 2008, John McCain gave us both Sarah Palin and Samuel A. “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher. That is his shameful legacy.
July 6th, 2009 at 11:20 pm
Could someone like Palin actually win? What about the next Palin?
http://noemptywallets.blogspot.com/2009/07/what-about-next-palin.html
July 7th, 2009 at 12:14 am
Econobuzz, I think you meant “dead from the neck up”, yeah?
Palin’s appeal is multifaceted. Her looks are part of it. Her hard religious, anti-choice stand is another. Finally, she has a bubbly personality. People who like her don’t notice that what she says doesn’t make any sense because nothing any politician says makes any sense to them. To them, it’s all a garbled mess and she sounds just like the rest of the politicians, so they assume she knows just as much as them.
July 7th, 2009 at 1:23 am
@Aatos
Yep, that press conference was given by those salt of the earth, blue collar Palins outside of their big expensive new house. On the lake shore. Next to their plane. Just a typical working class family!
July 7th, 2009 at 9:09 am
It’s amazing: Palin has been videotaped enough that the whole world can see her mental status, and at the same time, the record of much of the media is also as clear as day: not much scrutiny of this person who came so close to the Oval Office. Call me old-fashioned: I think banks should make loans to people, I think car companies should make cars that people actually want to buy, and I think the media should give serious coverage to the fact that someone who never even gave a real press conference got 46% of the vote for the Vice Presidency of the United States.
July 7th, 2009 at 9:22 am
There is another class issue: working women. Sarah Palin and I are both college educated working mothers of the same age. I went to state schools for my BA and MPA. What I see when I look at her is an unserious, incurious bonehead who has gone far on her looks and charisma, and apparently nothing else. Good for her that she got elected to something, but there is more to leadership and administration than just showing up, and she hasn’t managed the showing up part all that well as governor of Alaska.
For those of us who can do the job AND manage a staff without acrimony and paranoia in the real world, who read the Economist as well as People, who use our passports and are engaged in the real world, who have had to struggle with day care instead of being able to take a child to work, well, we have issues with this silly cow. She doesn’t live in the real world; rather, she’s living in the Disney Princess world, and she’s whining because the MSM and the bloggers don’t know she’s the princess.
She is as cynical as they come. There are women before us who worked far too hard for Ms Palin to minimalmize their efforts and achievements. She has been the one who has towed her family out for the public, trading on her “family values,” amd using her family as an excuse to avoid having to answer substantive questions (not that the MSM is particularly good at that these days). It is one matter to reduce a local legislative campaign to ridiculous slogans, but in this foolish woman-child, we have someone who receives a good amount of free national media attention and is allowed to ingore rational thought and policy prescriptions, and instead is permitted to embrace middle-school level one-liners. We need someone, anyone, who is better than that. And most of the women I know with my background feel the same way. Who knew you could be an elitist when you are an alumnae of the University of Nebraska system?
I am no fan of Maureen Dowd, but Carbiou Barbie? Oh, yeah. My worst nightmare: Palin-Bachman 2012.
July 7th, 2009 at 9:29 am
“The GOP’s problems began when they started letting these [ignorant] people into leadership positions in the party”
I think it all began with Reagan’s infamous “evolution is only a theory” statement. When a revered President fingers himself as an ignoramus, why not let in his imitators?
July 7th, 2009 at 9:52 am
It may not be about Palin’s class, but it IS about class. The fact is that quite a lot of not very educated Americans (2/3 of the populationdon’t have a BA according to your quoted statistic) rather admire stupid. And that is frightening.
July 7th, 2009 at 9:53 am
Astrodem #67’s post offers the best insight I’ve read on the subject. There is a serious reality/fantasy split in this country illuminated a few years ago when a George Bushy sneered at “the reality-based community”. It’s hard enough to navigate reality when you’re really paying attention. Now I see all our small obsessions and entertainments (i.e. Palin) as the real danger. They blind us to what is real. That’s exactly why we’re in this mess.
July 7th, 2009 at 10:19 am
Being less than bright and succeeding is an American virtue. Think of the movies “Forrest Gump,” “Erin Brokavich, and “Good Will Hunting” – all movies where someone without education became fabulously successful. It is a kind of American archetype. Except real life doesn’t work like the movies, and though Palin’s story fits a kind of Hollywood mold, she’s failed badly when she’s had to prove her legitimacy.
July 7th, 2009 at 10:51 am
The Palin story is a lot like a melange of “Meet John Doe”, “Nothing Sacred”, and John Carpenter’s “The Thing”.
She isn’t going to exit the stage with the quiet dignity of Gary Cooper or the wit of Carole Lombard.
July 7th, 2009 at 11:59 am
It’s sad that Douthat’s pet Klansman, the useless white supremacist Steve Sailer, is still carrying on battles in his behalf. Give it up, Sailer – Douthat dropped you from his Atlantic blogroll as part of his climb to the NYT perch. He probably doesn’t even return your calls anymore.
And how weird is it that Douthat – perhaps the most class-conscious man in America, a freak who started writing a book about going to Harvard while he was still going to Harvard – now puts on a populist costume every day? He should be ashamed of himself, but he doesn’t have that kind of moral capacity.
July 7th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
The only type of class that matters is perceived class.it doesn’t matter if you went to Yale and harvard: if you look to others like a stupid product of “lower society” that’s what you’ll be treated as.
July 7th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Ross would be correct if Palin had actually, you know, succeeded. She’s failed at governing Alaska, she was on a losing ticket that lost so badly precisely because she was such a joke of a candidate, she blew every major interview she gave, she’s made an ass of herself at nearly every given opportunity, she’s a proven liar… and on and on and on. She’s a CATASTROPHE. Ross is simply equating notoriety and fame with “success.” Another turd columnist at the NYTimes. Yay.
July 7th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Of course, Granholm can’t become President (she was born in Canada), but she isn’t particularly popular.
That is because she has the thankless task of being Governor of Michigan during a time when it is experiencing the economic equivalent of The Perfect Storm.
July 7th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
There might be some conservative out there who could bemoan the fact that a person can be wildly successful in politics *before* she knows anything about the issues and without having any substantive achievements outside her personal life. Or that a person can make conservative opinion leaders go crazy because of the mere fact that she appeals to certain sweet-spot demographics. But that person unfortunately is not Ross Douthat, as thoughtful as Douthat is.
July 7th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
JMO, you asked for “theories on why Asian and Caribbean immigrants have done so well while African Americans and Latino immigrants have done poorly.”
I can’t speak for Carribean immigrants, but I’m Asian and I think for Asians it’s fairly simple: most Asian immigrants – at least the ones who came after WWII and gave birth to the vast bulk of who you think of as Asian Americans today – came as members of their home country’s elite, in America to study or to flee political struggles that specifically targeted them BECAUSE they were the elites. Given that kind of background, I think it’s hardly a coincidence that their kids grew to be the most successful minority in the country – when your parents came here to pursue graduate school degrees, it’s fairly obvious they’re going to push you to get to the top of the wonkocracy too. (We can blabber about Confucian culture too, but that opens a whole Weberian can of worms that I’d prefer not to talk about).
As for African Americans, they started from a point of literally absolutely nothing 150 years ago, with no help from the government either; and for Latinos, the ones who immigrate tend to be the poorest in their home countries, out of desperation from their circumstances at home, and quite often illegal (not meaning to be racist, but I think demographics would bear out these assertions).
As for the general discussion, I think the reason Ivy League (and all other top university) graduates – the ones with the latte-sushi-literature lifestyles – tend to look down on flyover state salesmen with equivalent economic achievements is that plain and simple, Ivy people consider themselves smarter. No matter how much more a donut king makes than a McKinsey consultant or a thinktanker, there is always the belief that the McKinsey or thinktank job takes much more brainpower. And even all the cultural hallmarks – artsy music, lattes, trips to Europe – are ostentanious markers of intellectual curiousity (and believe it or not, sometimes they do it not to flaunt their status but because they are genuinely interested!) The Ivy college because a convenient symbol for that conception of class, because (legacies, shady donations, etc not withstanding) the Ivys are still supposed to be the embodiment of smartness. Even if you’re dumb as a rock and your dad got you in, you’d still have to act smart because that is what the environment expects of you. (As opposed to a beer-state school, where the environment expects the opposite). This is why there’s lots of healthy respect for good state schools in that wonkocratic class – ie U. Michigan or various strong business or engineering programs in state schools – but almost complete contempt for the kinds of schools Palin went to, because those suggest you are stupid.
I think that’s what forms the ultimate class distinction – those who have convinced themselves they’ve made it because they’re smart will always look down on those who don’t seem as smart. And while you might be able to convince a wealth-based or nobility-based class system to respect those who weren’t born into the same lucky circumstances, you’ll never convince someone with “smart” credentials to respect those who s/he thinks weren’t born with the same smarts.
July 8th, 2009 at 1:31 am
The unmentionable issue regarding Palin is that a 45 year old woman with five children hasn’t had time to think through all the national and international issues a President needs to have thought about.
20 years of being a mother is better preparation for high office than 20 years of being a drunk.
July 10th, 2009 at 1:01 am
Re #102:
Being less than bright and succeeding is an American
virtue. Think of the movies “Forrest Gump,” “Erin
Brokavich, and “Good Will Hunting” – all movies where
someone without education became fabulously successful.
It is a kind of American archetype. Except real life
doesn’t work like the movies, and though Palin’s story
fits a kind of Hollywood mold, she’s failed badly when
she’s had to prove her legitimacy.
Whoa! The terms “less than bright” and “without education” are NOT synonymous. Erin B was & is extremely bright and her success was neither a fantasy nor a flash in the pan … she went on to become a very successful paralegal in “real life”.
Sarah Palin is neither bright nor educated. A college degree is no guarantee of a college education, especially when one is a “legacy” as amply demonstrated by Bush. Unfortunately, as others have pointed out above, Americans tend to hate/fear intellectual achievement which is undoubtedly both a by-product and a perpetuating cause of our deplorable educational system.