by Eric Martin
Like Matt Yglesias, I can’t help but tear my hair out scratch my head at the suggestion by Lynn Forester de Rothschild that Barack Obama is too "elitist" for her liking (what a name considering her charge!) , but John "Too Many Houses to Count" McCain is just regular folk. Then again, looking at Forester de Rothschild’s bio, it’s easy to see how McCain can strike her as an everyman:
Forester is the CEO of EL Rothschild, a holding company with businesses around the world. She is married to international banker Sir Evelyn de Rothschild. Forester…splits her time living in London and New York.
Who doesn’t?
This is just one more example of the elitism bamboozlement methodically perpetrated by the GOP, and mindlessly perpetuated by a mainstream media that is all-too-willing to confuse brush clearing gimmicks for authenticity. This inverted logic has created a bizarre dynamic whereby Democrats (including a presidential candidate raised by a single mother, bumping up against severe poverty at times) are portrayed as having a problem connecting with "normal" and "average" Americans, while GOP leaders that live lifestyles of wealth that all but a miniscule fraction can even fathom are described as "accessible" and "down to earth."
The pervasiveness of this up-is-down narrative remains, oddly enough, unthreatened by the reality that the Democrats actually support a raft of policies designed to help middle class and working Americans, while the GOP pushes, relentlessly, for massive wealth redistribution upwards. The GOP has been so shameless in its efforts to pour lucre into cups that are already overflowing that we have been treated in recent years to the bizarre spectacle of uber-wealthy Americans such as Warren Buffett, Donald Trump and Bill Gates (to name a few) arguing that they don’t need all the tax breaks that Republicans are pushing on them. It’s as if they feel an embarrassment that GOP lawmakers are incapable of.
Those notable capitalists argue that their taxes should be higher, and spending should be directed at other priorities. Imagine that? Yet when the Democrats utter this fairly uncontroversial view, they are accused of engaging in class warfare. Yglesias is right about this:
On an unrelated note, the stakes have rarely been higher in an election for extremely rich people than they are in this one. Barack Obama’s tax proposals don’t raise a ton of new net revenue and, as a consequence, have tended to be viewed as pretty moderate. But one reason they don’t raise all that much net revenue is that he’s offering large tax cuts to the majority of people and those offset the substantial tax hike he’s proposing on the rich.
But he’s the elitist. Along those lines, this piece appearing in Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post is notable for its attempt to strike fear in the hearts of wealthy New Yorkers:
Barack Obama‘s plan to raise taxes would pile a staggering $16 billion in additional taxes on wealthy New Yorkers, according to a new report.
The study, from the conservative-oriented Manhattan Institute, examined the impact in 2009-2010 of Obama’s proposals. The Democratic candidate wants to repeal President Bush’s reduction in the top two tax brackets, while also imposing higher capital-gains and dividend taxes on those earning more than $250,000 a year.
The report…noted that New York has just 6.4 percent of the nation’s tax filers. But the state’s share in paying for Obama’s tax hikes would come to nearly 11 percent – the highest extracted from any state except California.
The study said Obama’s plan to retain Bush’s tax cuts for people earning low to middle incomes, as well as providing them with new or expanded tax credits, should provide $13 billion in added benefits to New Yorkers over two years. [emphasis added]
So let me see if I have this straight: the latte-sipping elitists who only care about their wealthy friends populating leftist coastal enclaves in California and New York are going to stick it to…their wealthy friends in California and New York in order to benefit the vast majority of hard working, average Americans.
It doesn’t get any more elitist than that.
fall is the slow, sick, sucking part of politics.
indeed.
That’s Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, if you don’t mind.
When Democrats and Republicans talk about elitism they’re talking about two different things. When Democrats say someone is a member of the elite they mean that he has more money than other people. (Democrats don’t talk about “elitism,” but about “the elite”.) But when Republicans talk about elitism they’re talking about education – Barack Obama is an elitist because he went to a fancypants Ivy League school. They’re telling the voters, “He thinks he’s smarter than you!”
Once more, it’s the politics of resentment.
And speaking for myself, I want someone in the Oval Office who’s smarter than me.
Andrew: Barack Obama is an elitist because he went to a fancypants Ivy League school.
While George W. Bush is not an elitist because he just went to …two fancypants Ivy League schools.
Kevin: How elitist of me.
AndrewBM: How do you think Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild was talking about elitism?
What AndrewBW said, education and thinking put you out of touch with the common man, marrying/being born in to wealth have nothing to do with it.
(and never mind that Bush has not one, but two Ivy League degrees)
AndrewBW: You seen Jon Stewart’s commentary to that effect?
Warren Buffet.
Good post, Eric.
In other news, Carly Fiorini has views on McCain’s and Palin’s fitness to manage anything larger than a lemonade stand. Washington Monthly has the news.
When Democrats say someone is a member of the elite they mean that he has more money than other people. (Democrats don’t talk about “elitism,” but about “the elite”.) But when Republicans talk about elitism they’re talking about education
Like when Obama vacationed in exotic locales – like Hawaii. Like when Kerry windsurfed and engaged in other rich people sports. Like when Obama was bad at bowling, ate arugala and had never eaten at Applebees.
Thullen,
William is his even richer cousin. But in the interest of making this post more readable, I’ll change it to Warren 😉
we took a trip to SF and wine country last summer. i had that song in my head for two weeks…
Down, from Santa Rosa over the Bay
Across the grapevine to LA
Man-made deltas and concrete rivers
The south takes what the north delivers
Remember this line from one of the 2004 debates: “I won’t hold it against him that he went to Yale. There’s nothing wrong with that.” For the media and those who knew Bush went to Yale, that was a little joke. But for a substantial part of Bush’s anti-intellectual base, it was simply straightforwardly pointing out Kerry as an elitist and distinguishing him from common man Dubya, who probably went to a community college if he went to college at all.
Can I be the first to ask a very simple question: why should ANYONE care what this lady thinks?
Before this story, I’d never heard of her. I’m willing to bet 99.99% of my fellow citizens are in the same boat.
This is a lady with an overinflated sense of importance because, well, she’s very wealthy. Let’s not give her the attention she doesn’t deserve.
Thanks.
At a time of unprecedented economic worry for the average american what does Barack Obama do to demonstrate he understands their concerns?
He goes to Beverly Hills to have dinner with Barbara Striesand and other wealthy celebrities charging them a price for this priviledge well in excess of the average persons monthly take home pay.
But forget about all that. What are his policies to address the current crisis?
How is he going to restore the trust in the nations credit markets? It starts at the UST. Credit default swaps for UST debt is at all time highs, soaring from 2bp to 30bp.
It is not the level of debt that is causing this problem as much as it is the growing doubt about American politicians committment to honor its debts.
Actually Barack Obama has two fancypants Ivy League degrees too.
As for Lady Rothschild, don’t forget that she’s not attacking Obama from the right, as McCain would. In fact, she was a major Clinton supporter and her comments were first aired in a Times of London story on August 17. Hillary Clinton’s rich friend Lady de Rothschild ambushes Barack Obama. So the dynamic here is different than if she were a Republican attacking Obama. (Which may raise a question as to whether she still in fact maintains those views.)
OK, strike that last paenthetical on my misreading. But still, her attack on Obama’s elitism isn’t the same as a classic Republican attack.
This has gotta be the stupidest election ever. What a time to be alive.
Here’s hoping that the Obama campaign gets a press release out that “Lady de Rothschild Endorses McCain.” Because he’s so for the working class American. . .
It is not the level of debt that is causing this problem as much as it is the growing doubt about American politicians committment to honor its debts
And how do you separate the two? They’re inextricably linked.
At a time of unprecedented economic worry for the average american what does Barack Obama do to demonstrate he understands their concerns?
He lays out a specific six point plan in a series of speeches. A six point plan that he had already drafted last spring.
Backing it up with a lengthy ad
People who go by “Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild” don’t get to call other people elitist, except maybe as a term of affection.
ken — pot, meet kettle.
As Andrew Sullivan said, she lost me at “de”. Given that this is not from The Onion, I can only imagine “elitist” is what she got from spinning the “It’s Not Because He’s Black” Excuse Wheel™.
This is one of the various ways in which Obama’s race hinders him. He’s just not able to make “heartland” America feel like he’s jes’ folks the way, say, Hilary Clinton did during the primary by swigging shots etc. It’s obviously BS whenever any nearly any politician does it, but it’s a trick denied Obama.
On the other hand, he gets to appeal to younger people without making a whole lot of effort. It’s demographics, not so much a racism issue, he’s just unlikely to be from a minority demographic racially-speaking (not that I really agree with the definitions of premises of those ethnic categories).
Of course, probing further, perceptions of race are obviously at the root of that, but it would be too simplistic just to call someone a racist because they’re not buying an upper-middle class urbanite senator (ie basically all senators) as just like them,
all these pols have constructed images, some just more blatantly than others.
Why the hell isn’t Warren Buffet all over TV campaigning for Obama? Buffet is smart enough to know that prosperous customers, not tax cuts, are what make people like him rich. He may not be a raving liberal, but his heart seems to be roughly in the right place. He may have his hands middling full these days (unlike penny-ante former CEO Carly Fiorina) but surely he can find a few minutes to tell Mrs. Alan Greenspan to put a sock in it. What’s his hang-up?
–TP
“At a time of unprecedented economic worry for the average american what does Barack Obama do to demonstrate he understands their concerns?”
So, Ken, since you’re on Obama again, let’s ask again: “I can never forgive him [Barack Obama] for useing racism against the Clintons.”
How did Barack Obama do that?
“But I also will no longer support afirmative action, preferential admission policies and other programs designed to assist minorities gain access to good job opportunities.”
What does Barack Obama have to do with this?
“But we also know that when somone like him does not get accepted it is because they made room for a minority applicant with lower GPA. Skin color made all the difference.”
How, exactly, do you know this? Please be specific.
“jes, Your comment about me is typical racism.”
Can you please define what you mean by “racism”?
Thanks.
I don’t think she’d have gotten away with that in the general if she’d gotten the nomination. She would’ve gotten the same “elitist” media narrative as Gore, Kerry, and Obama.
Eric: while I share your
hair-tearing angstbewildered amusement at the sight of a Rothschild (even a Rothschild-in-law) chiding Barack Obama for “elitism”, I think AndrewBW is on to something. And it’s not just the “education” thing, nor, pace your typically excellent segue into the particulars of the candidates’ tax policies, even necessarily an economic issue, so much as a cultural one.Mybe it’s just my reading, but ISTM that Republican attacks on Democrats’ “elitism” are, functionally, an echo of the ideological rifts of the 1950s and 1960s – wedge issues go of which they simply will not let. The delineations they posit between “elitist” and “regular” Americans seems far more an attempt to paint Democrats with the dreaded “liberal” label: issues of “patriotism”/”love of country”; “family”; “values”; and, above all – “religion” – issues on which liberals/Democrats can be (and usually are) painted as being on the “wrong” side of. At least by the rigid ideological definitions that the American Right has been using for at least 75 years (i.e., “Tolerance is Bad”).
The Obama campaign and Democrats in general would do better, IMH (and unsolicited) O: to avoid making their attacks on the “elitism” nonsense solely about economics: addressing the population’s social concerns: however superficial or stereotyped they may be: this election is too important – every vote is going to be needed.
I’m just grateful for Sarah Palin’s truth-telling, and sad we don’t have Al Gore, liar to kick around any more.
At some point, it would be nice if we could all recognize that a sense of elitism is a pre-requisite for running for political office. Anyone who sincerely believes that they are best positioned to tell other people what to do with their lives is, by definition, an elitist. This belief, of course, is a necessary requirement to be a politician – assuming, of course that the politician actually wants the power they seek for less-than-selfish reasons.
It chills me to think what a non-elitist (read: consciously selfish) politician would do.
Eric,
I think you meant Warren Buffett (with 2 t’s).
/elitist nitpicking
farmgirl, you are saying that McCain is just as much an elitist than is Obama? How exactly is that supposed to be a good thing, for either of them?
Today McCain issued a statement saying he understood that the AIG bailout was unaviodable because of the widespead harm doing nothing would have caused.
Obama issued a statement blaming Bush.
I’m sorry, Obama is so freaking out of touch it is scary. This is what acedemics cannot teach you. It cannot teach you empathy, nor can it teach what needs to be done in emergencies.
McCain gets it. Obama does not.
Yet neither of them inspire any confidence as far as I am concerned.
Jay C, before 2004, did anyone think of windsurfing as somehow more culturally elite than snowmobiling?
yes, and McCain’s idea of “what needs to be done in an emergency”: convene a commission.
thanks for playing, but no.
It is not the level of debt that is causing this problem as much as it is the growing doubt about American politicians (sic) committment (sic) to honor its debts
From CNN:
Here is the what Ken’s argument implies when squared with the reaction in the bond markets:
People are afraid that the US will not honor its debt. So they rush to buy more of that debt at higher prices than before.
Does that make sense to anyone but Ken?
It starts at the UST. Credit default swaps for UST debt is at all time highs, soaring from 2bp to 30bp.
This is not due to fear that the US will not honor its debt. This is due to the fact that no one wants to make deals today because they have a very reasonable fear that the entity on the other side of the deal might not exist tomorrow.
I think it’s scary that you think Obama is out of touch.