A Quote by Astra Taylor
One thing that's important to point out is that this kind of populism has a long and mixed history. It's part of this tradition of problematic anti-elitism where the elites are always the liberal class - the intellectuals, the professors, the artists - and not the economic elites. Why are we so mad and aggrieved at newspaper editors but not at corporate executives? I think we need to look more at the latter, at economic elites.
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I think there are different kinds of elites. I think there are venal elites, and self-interested elites, and selfish elites, and I think there are visionary elites.
Go ahead and make something for the elites. Not the elites of class or wealth, but the elites of curiosity, passion and taste. Every great thing ever created was created by and for this group.
It's very un-American to say nice things about elites. Elites are often terrible. It's not like we've ever had a perfect set of benevolent democratic elites ruling over our country. But the fact of the matter is that a representative system of democracy delegates power to elites.
Elites are inevitable in politics. That is how politics is going to work. The question is, are your elites responsible, public-spirited? Do they think about the interests of others, not just themselves? And the story of Western politics since the beginning of the century is that as elites become more separated, more selfish, as they leave behind their populations and don't think about them, they become discredited. And the people look for alternatives. But the alternative is worse. Those rules of the game protect us all. And they are more precious than almost any political outcome.
If you think about what folks have been doing for 20 or 30 years, they have been bottling frustration and resentment that the political elites don't understand them, that the political elites don't care about them, that the political elites judge them in various ways. All Donald Trump does is provide the opposite of those things.
What is interesting is that, although it is framed as a war between the elites and Main Street, the Tea Party is actually really good for the elites.
There are elites that are real leaders and role models. There are elites that are really selfish and want to pull up the ladder once they've reached the roof.
Don't be buffaloed by experts and elites. Experts often possess more data than judgment. Elites can become so inbred that they produce hemophiliacs who bleed to death as soon as they are nicked by the real world.
Newt Gingrich has criticized 'New York elites' who ride the subway. One of those subway elites threw up on my pants this morning.
What's wrong with politics in the celebrity billionaire analysis is politicians. Populism is not so much a cry for economic equality, or even a disdain for elites, but a mass revulsion against the inauthenticity of politicians. Celebrities are real celebrities, politicians are fake ones.
There's a lingering notion that elites continue to lead, and the masses will follow. This historic model of influence was predicated on the belief that elites have access to superior information and their interests are interconnected with those of the broader public.
No hypocrisy is too great when economic and financial elites are obliged to defend their interest.
While Obama, the olive-branch poseur, has called for a restoration of 'civility' in Washington and liberal elites whine and whinny about the need for 'no labels,' class-warfare demagoguery has metastasized unchecked.
The elites hate to acknowledge it, but when large numbers of ordinary people are moved to action, it changes the narrow political world where the elites call the shots. Inside accounts reveal the extent to which Johnson and Nixon's conduct of the Vietnam War was constrained by the huge anti-war movement. It was the civil rights movement, not compelling arguments, that convinced members of Congress to end legal racial discrimination.
A party committed to defending the economic interests of rich elites could never win by saying so.
If democracy as we know it has to survive the elites have to regain their credibility. And they have to start by admitting that their economic model is broken.
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