"The Liberal Elites"--code-word?

[AlienGirl]

This deserves a thread of its own.

We all know that when culture-war conservatives say "welfare mothers" they mean black people, when they say "illegal aliens" they mean Latinos, and when they say anything like "anti-family elements" they mean gays.

But who do they mean by "liberal elites"? Is it a code-word for something else, or is it just an attempt to create a false link between liberalism and elitism?

Tucker

[XNASA]

1. I think they mean smart people.

[underpants]

4. Actually it's (dare I say) class warfare

The Repubes have for whatever reason been able to portray themselves as for the working people. This "liberal elite" does mean those people who go to college (picture Ivy covered walls, wearing ties to class, "Chariots of Fire" type stuff) but who doesn't go to college? Hell it's basically a master's in high school now.

I have heard this several times on the Today Show as they have had the Chairmen of both the Repube and the Dems in California on. The Repube ("Duf" is the first name he goes by) said it in answering to newspaper articles and op/eds in California papers. The Dem chairman pointed out that editors and publishers of newspapers are predominantly conservative/Republican.

[regnaD kciN]

22. My thoughts exactly!

"Liberal elites" = people with intellect, education, and ideas. Republicans hate those kind of people, and their attacks are basically a way of spreading the notion that being unable or unwilling to think (so that they can do all your thinking for you, of course) is "the American way."

It has been this way since 1952, when the Eisenhower/Nixon campaign realized that their Democratic opponent (Adlai Stevenson) could beat them in a battle of wits with one frontal lobe tied behind his back, and so decided to turn that into a negative by labelling him an "egghead" who wasn't like "you and me." So far, it's been working, which might mean that stupidity really is the American way. :-(

(Funniest moment of this came in the late 60s, when Nixon nominated a Supreme Court justice who wasn't the brightest star in the firmament. Roman Hruska -- a Republican, of course -- supported his nomination on the Senate floor, on the grounds that the nominee was, in fact, "mediocre," but that there were a lot of mediocre people in the United States, and they deserved representation, too! :crazy: )

[baby_bear]

2. I heard that this morning

Some sound-bite debate about the California newspapers almost all being opposed to the recall. The Republican called newspaper publishers "the liberal elite." It was definitely code. My impression is that it is used as a sort of class warfare tool, to try to instill in people's minds that liberals are intellectual snobs and think they are better than everyone else.

I think it stinks but I also think it's effective. It goes along with W's phony persona as just a regular guy. People eat it up.

s_m

[Kat45]

17. Bingo!

That's always been my impression of what they mean by that. And yes, the "liberal elite" would also more likely be Jews.

And you're right: unfortunately, it is effective--TOO effective.

[baby_bear]

26. I never thought about the Jewish angle

But you are right, now that I think of it. I just ran across some real ugly slander against Barbra Streisand. I think it was an ad for a book by that horrible Laura Ingraham. It definitely had that anti-semite flavor, couched in anti-liberal-elite terms.

I didn't make the connection before, thanks.

How despicable of them. Is this what California wants? Leaders who despise intelligent individuals in general and Jews in particular?

s_m

[Drifter]

3. It is an unfounded myth ...

that Democrats are the rich "special interest" party.

I guess that explains the reason AWOL will be breaking his own presidential fund raising record (by doubling it).

Wow those poor Republicans are really making a sacrific to prop up this corrupt administration.

Lets do the math. Republicans are the minority party (by a few percentage points), yet they manage to raise more than double the money that Democrats do. Corporate special interest donations also favor Republicans by 2 to 1.

Cheers
Drifter

[Maple]

5. Smart educated people

who have some measure of money...as opposed to 'Joe Six-pack' who works at the factory.

It's a way of introducing class warfare without actually talking about 'working class' vs 'upper-middle class' or 'educated class'.

It also reminds people of that smart-alecky or well-off kid back in school that irritated the hell out of you, and transfers your resentment to today.

[eauclaireliberal]

27. Hey, wait a damned minute!

I AM Joe Six-pack...

Okay, well, my father is a poli-sci professor and my mother has her masters in "Adult education." I think that's what the repukes are talking about when they say "Liberal elite." It works like this: "We are complete fucking morons, and we'll have to appeal to other morons by talking about what a bunch of stuck-up jerks those liberals are."

I was destined to follow in mom and dad's footsteps of academia, but left the university to go to tech-college. I have my gramps' 'Joe Six-pack' blood. In most ways, I'm more like my grandfather. My parents weren't disappointed in the least that I chose to work Milwaukee's factories instead of teach, suprisingly.

My gramps may seem conservative at times, but dickheads like Dubs get him going into a rage over the screwing-over of the working man, and as a result he has ALWAYS voted for the "D". He has always been involved in unionized labor, and thinks that repubs don't give a whit about guys like him. He has also seen the effects of racism (being a target himself) and when I said the 'N' word at age 5 (*SHOCK*), got my ass spanked hard for that.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

6. Intelligent People! The DLC too has jumped on this!

They attack we progressives and call us special interests! They attack Howard Dean for "Pandering" to them! How about we talk about the DLC that panders to the Corporate World! They attack the
pro-choice lobby, the unions, the enviromentalists, and the anti-illegal war crowd as special interests! Some how this makes us corrupt, so says the DLC and Rethugs! How about we talk about the Corporate Pimps that control the DLC and Republklan parties???


:mad:

[boxster]

7. I hate that term. Isn't it kind of an oxymoron anyway?

People on these forums have used it to decry several different candidates as the "liberal elite". If you're really liberal, doesn't that contradict the negativity intended with the term "elite"?

And, really - why is being liberal elite bad? Warren Buffett is a Democrat and he sure as hell is elite. Is that bad?

Disclaimer: yes, I know he supposedly helped Arnold, but I live in his hometown and he's done what I consider to be an adequate job of distancing himself from the campaign and explaining his rationale. He thinks CA property tax law is a joke and thought this would provide a forum to say so. If you don't like him as an example, try Bill Gates. Ok, another bad example....

[BiggJawn]

8. *I* am the "Liberal Elite".

Because I think the majority of Murkan Sheep are stupid, or at best drugged into senselessness by all their shiney new possessions.

and I could give a shit about the flighty "swing Voters"....

[boxster]

11. Doesn't that really make you

the liberal left? Or the loony left? Maybe the "fringe left-wing"?

Just kidding. :P

Labels that stereotype large groups of people are so dumb.

[BiggJawn]

14. No, No, and no...

Because I eat meat and can't STAND the smell of Bigbucks, uh, Starbucks...:7

[preciousdove]

9. Any Purge requires you eliminate all the smart, ethical people..

It has happened already in corporate, government, religious and military America. Anyone who tries to hold on to some ethics is eliminated.

I stumbled into it in religous America when I was invited to my sister's born again church in VA several years ago. They ambushed the senior minister at the service because his young adult daughter had eloped with someone outside the chucrh. They made a point that it with love but he was no longer fit to lead because he could not control his daughter. My sister and her Marine major lawyer husband thought there was nothing wrong with what happened.

The military is by nature that way. Corporate America has caca for brians as the Diebold fiasco shows including the people who could not do their jobs only follow orders to put out a defective product.

In government we all know to well what has happened. Those they could not eliminate with coersion, and dirty tricks died in plane crashes. How many people around Clinton went down and there was an incident with an aircraft that Clinton was to use.

Oh I forgot Acadamia and research remember the 17 bio-terrorism experts and the "hit list" for Lyme Disease doctors in NY? All of the advisory board members of the American Society of Pediatrics refused to sign off on the offical diagnostic and treatment guidelnes for Lyme in children except Wormser because they did not fit with current research. The guidelines were made by one man who has ties to the bio-terrorism community in America.

I am truely amazed that we are still able to come here to share, and discuss. With all the pressure on the Bush administration I have a heightened uneasyness. For the Bush Cabal failure is not an option and they have and will do anything to hold onto power.

[Armstead]

10. Jews

Sorry if that offends, but that's what it means to many right wingers.

[regnaD kciN]

23. Not always...

When it was being used in the 60s, it seemed mainly to be aimed at the college-educated Irish-Americans who formed a large part of the Kennedy administration.

Later, during the campus uproar of the late 60s, it was presented in such a way as to imply that anyone with a college education -- particularly from a top-quality college like Harvard or Yale instead of the local State U. -- was automatically an amoral, drug-using socialist whose goal was to overthrow the United States and establish communism. Sound like the Republican caricature of anyone? Like, maybe, the last elected president?

[sangh0]

12. It has a very respectable pedigree

Our nation was founded on the idea that people should not subjected to the whims of the few who happen to wield a disproportionate share of power. "Liberal elites" is meant to distract from the anger that is legitimately directed at the plutocrats and replace it with a hostility towards liberals.

[voter x]

13. LAURA INGRAHAM

She slings that phrase around like a razor sharp epithet. She was on ScarborHO County, unfortunately I stopped and litened, with much contempt, to her ramblings about the "elites" in Hollywood...

The Russians used the term to refer to Jews, Intellectuals, Politicos, and other disssenters.

Jason

[AlienGirl]

15. That was what prompted this thread...

That other thread about Ingraham's book was what made me start wondering just who the "liberal elite" was supposed to be. I think maybe my immediate, knee-jerk thought--that "liberal elite," especially attached to "Hollywood" or "media" was code for "Jews"--might've been right, and not just my bigotry detector going into overdrive.

Tucker

[Skittles]

16. ANYONE WHO THINKS

people who don't wrap themselves in God and the flag and goose-step to Bush Inc.

[regularguy]

18. Always assumed it meant Jews.

Although I think the emergence of the hard pro-Israel right has muddied it up a bit.

[voter x]

21. I agree

and it makes me a lttle angry to see that so many people buy into the lie

[smirkymonkey]

19. Ummmm....people who

date/marry outside the family?? :)

[DBoon]

25. See Post #9

You were trying to be funny, but see where a daughter marrying outside "the church" was grounds for removing the minister?

[bluestateguy]

20. anti-intellectualism

which runs deeper in the republican party than the Democratic party. When we say elites, we mean Ken Lay and the excutives of Enron. When they say elites, they mean Barbara Streisand and a college professor making $80,000 a year.

[La_Serpiente]

24. I don't know

Honestly, I really don't know