The Ugly Elitism of the American Right

[Nevilledog]

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2023/03/the-ugly-elitism-of-the-american-right/673350/

No paywall
https://archive.is/AcnOs

Loathing and Indifference

It’s time to talk about elitism.

Last month, I wrote that the revelations about Fox News in the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit showed that Fox personalities, for all their populist bloviation, are actually titanic elitists. This is not the elitism of those who think they are smarter or more capable than others—I’ll get to that in a moment—but a new and gruesome elitism of the American right, a kind of hatred and disgust on the part of right-wing media and political leaders for the people they claim to love and defend. Greed and cynicism and moral poverty can explain only so much of what we’ve learned about Fox; what the Dominion filings show is a staggering, dehumanizing version of elitism among people who have made a living by presenting themselves as the only truth-tellers who can be trusted by ordinary Americans.

I am, to say the least, no stranger to the charge of elitism. When I wrote a book in 2018 titled The Death of Expertise, a study of how people have become so narcissistic and so addled by cable and the internet that they believe themselves to be smarter than doctors and diplomats, I was regularly tagged as an “elitist.” And the truth is: I am an elitist, insofar as I believe that some people are better at things than others.

But even beyond talent and ability, I do in fact firmly believe that some opinions, political views, personal actions, and life choices are better than others. As I wrote in my book at the time:

Americans now believe that having equal rights in a political system also means that each person’s opinion about anything must be accepted as equal to anyone else’s. This is the credo of a fair number of people despite being obvious nonsense. It is a flat assertion of actual equality that is always illogical, sometimes funny, and often dangerous.

If that makes me an elitist, so be it.

In this, elitism is the opposite of populism, whose adherents believe that virtue and competence reside in the common wisdom of a nebulous coalition called “the people.” This pernicious and romantic myth is often a danger to liberal democracies and constitutional orders that are founded, first and foremost, on the inherent rights of individuals rather than whatever raw majorities think is right at any given time.

*snip*

[highplainsdem]

1. K&R!

[Solly Mack]

2. K&R

[Coventina]

3. Thank you for posting this. K&R

[JHB]

4. I don't disagree with the main point, but...

...this is another case of a "former Republican" touting as a revelation and patting themselves on the back for keen insight something that liberals have been pointing out for over 20 years -- in other words "figured this out way ahead of you" -- and will not budge from his boundless faith in his own expertise and powers of observation.

In 2016, I believed that good people were making a mistake. In 2023, I cannot dismiss their choices as mere mistakes. Instead, I accept and respect the human agency that has led Trump supporters to their current choices. Indeed, I insist on recognizing that agency: I have never agreed with the people who dismiss Trump voters as robotic simpletons who were mesmerized by Russian memes. I believe that today’s Trump supporters are people who are making a conscious, knowing, and morally flawed choice to continue supporting a sociopath and a party chock-full of seditionists.

In 2016 you were a damn fool, Mr. Nichols, and for not recognizing that about yourself in 2023, you're still a damn fool.

And you're hogging space at The Atlantic that would be better served by someone with a better track record for having correctly observed what was happening to the Republican Party and the Republican base. Y'know, someone liberal.

[cachukis]

7. In a nutshell.

[SheltieLover]

5. "Elite" seemed to morph into meaning literate when Hillary ran for pres.

Idiots!

[unblock]

6. The right wingers, of course, are the real elitists

They decided that they know better and can't be told otherwise, based on their whiteness, maleness, cis-heterosexuality, Christianity, etc.

They decided everyone else is second class, cancerous, evil, or just plain something to get rid of one way or another.

You can't get more elitist than that.