Kind of funny how people who play the populist card with such ferocity love to dress up and cavort like the ruling elites of a slaveowning society.
I suppose human nature is involved. Pure populism and pure elitism are pretty much impossible, and just about everybody is somebody's snob and somebody else's slob at the same time, so there are bound to be inconsistencies and hypocrisies where populism and elitism are concerned.
But if you rail against overprivileged elites wouldn't you feel some hesitation in celebrating one very powerful and privileged ruling class from long ago? And if you favor a hierarchical society, would you really feel comfortable stoking populist passions for social and political leveling?
I guess the idea is that for neoconfederates, the secessionist leaders were "our own" people, but one has to wonder if Davis and Lee would have felt the same warmth towards their crackpot supporters today.
The Confederate leaders weren't a bunch of guys who got together in the garage to talk about guns over a beer. They were a self-conscious ruling elite with the faults of other elites in history.
If you're a Southern nationalist I guess it all does make sense in a funny way, but it's the libertarians and populists who mess things up, by making it about liberty or equality in the abstract, rather than about local masters versus distant rulers.
Excellent point.
Those same secessionists who attempted to rip our nation apart wouldn’t object to the likes of pokie, cva, or idabooby cleaning their spittoons, but otherwise wouldn’t be seen in public with them.
“Kind of funny how people who play the populist card with such ferocity love to dress up and cavort like the ruling elites of a slaveowning society.” (x)
Hmmmm.....guess you’d consider these people in Ohio kind of funny too:
If you browse their photos of previous balls, you’ll see both men and women in period attire. Yes, the blue uniform is prominent.
Reckon the Union leaders were just some guys who got together over beers in a garage? Could they have possibly been (gasp!) ruling elites? Surely there weren’t any professional politicians among them! And surely not a slave owner among them ever, oh, the horror!
I don’t find it necessary to try and psycoanalyse the folks having a ball in Ohio, I think they’re just honoring their past and having fun. Did it ever occur to you that it really can be just that simple?
That ruling elite of contemptuous political manipulators had a lot in common with what conservatives rightly despise in today's leftist establishment.