Meriterà altre riflessioni, ma la questione dell’antielitismo e del populismo che ribolle da tempo, sta arrivando ad esplodere parallelamente in Italia e negli Stati Uniti, e ha due “campioni” diversi ma ugualmente demagogici e sopra le righe: Glenn Beck e il ministro Brunetta
Barack Obama leads a government of the highly educated. His movement includes urban politicians, academics, Hollywood donors and information-age professionals. In his first few months, he has fused federal power with Wall Street, the auto industry, the health care industries and the energy sector.
Given all of this, it was guaranteed that he would spark a populist backlash, regardless of his skin color. And it was guaranteed that this backlash would be ill mannered, conspiratorial and over the top — since these movements always are, whether they were led by Huey Long, Father Coughlin or anybody else.
What we’re seeing is the latest iteration of that populist tendency and the militant progressive reaction to it. We now have a populist news media that exaggerates the importance of the Van Jones and Acorn stories to prove the elites are decadent and un-American, and we have a progressive news media that exaggerates stories like the Joe Wilson shout and the opposition to the Obama schools speech to show that small-town folks are dumb wackos.
“One could argue that this country is on the verge of a crisis of legitimacy,” the economic blogger Arnold Kling writes. “The progressive elite is starting to dismiss rural white America as illegitimate, and vice versa.”
It’s not race. It’s another type of conflict, equally deep and old.
Pingback: Elitist of Italy, unite? | Lo Spazio della Politica
Pingback: DgTvOnline.com » Brunetta vs bad elites