Posted on 11/07/2004 5:14:08 AM PST by StoneGiant
Ordinary Americans confound the left By KATHLEEN PARKER
AS STUNNED Democrats scratch the dry earth for signs and glance heavenward for clues to the strange universe that reelected George W. Bush, it seems unduly cruel to withhold what Ordinary Americans have known all along.
Herewith a few hints: Michael Moore, Bruce Springsteen, P. Diddy, Paris Hilton, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston, Barbra Streisand, Jon Bon Jovi, Uma Thurman, Kirsten Dunst, Leonardo DiCaprio, Teresa Heinz Kerry, Ron Reagan, MoveOn.org, Dan Rather, the French — and everyone else who would be speaking German today if not for the bravery and sacrifice of Ordinary Americans who are today held in such contempt by all of the above. It’s the elitism, mes freres.
Here’s another clue: When courting voters in flyover states, one does not say: “I love you, stupid redneck morons.” Especially not when sporting biking tights and straddling an $8,000 two-wheeler — a dollar amount, incidentally, that many Ordinary Americans consider a life’s savings.
Not that John F. Kerry ever said such, but he didn’t have to. Preening in luxury and surrounded by celebrity friends contemptuous of the values ordinary Americans hold dear, he might as well have waltzed down Beale Street whistling Dixie.
Never has a politician been so out of touch with the voters whose goals he purportedly shares. Nor a party so out of tune with the nation’s defining song: “God Bless America.”
The folks who reelected Bush not only voted for the man they felt best represents their interests, but also against a culture they see as alien and hostile. The Bush vote was equally a protest against Hollywood, an increasingly untrustworthy media and the puerile Michael Moore contingent.
What those three cultural entities have in common as viewed from America’s heartland is an attitude of effete superiority that isn’t just untenable, but despised. In Thursday’s New York Times, cosmopolitan New Yorkers grappling with Kerry’s unthinkable defeat, told the story.
Beverly Camhe, a film producer; Zito Joseph, a retired psychiatrist; and Roberta Kimmel Cohn, an art dealer, elite New Yorkers all, were stunned. In Joseph’s words, Bush voters are “obtuse,” “short-sighted,” “redneck,” “shoot-from-the-hip” religious literalists.
“New Yorkers are more sophisticated and at a level of consciousness where we realize we have to think of globalization, of one mankind, that what’s going to injure masses of people is not good for us,” said Joseph, as he shared coffee and cigarettes with Cohn at an outdoor cafe.
The two-America divide isn’t fiction after all. And the division, as nearly everyone has noted, is about values. But what the Democrats got wrong, and what the New York Times subjects seem to be missing, is that traditional values and sophistication are not mutually exclusive. Nor does sophistication equate to intelligence, we hasten to add.
People who believe in heterosexual marriage because the traditional family model best serves children, and therefore society, are not ipso facto homophobic. Americans vexed about our casual disregard for human life are not necessarily Stepford-Neanderthals. And, those people who believe in some power greater than themselves are not always rubes.
In small towns across the nation, especially in the Deep South, one can find plenty of well-traveled, multilingual, latte-loving, Ivy-educated Ph.D.s, if that’s your measure of sophistication. But they’re not snobs, nor do they sneer at people who pay more than lip service to traditional values. In fact, they often share those very values in quiet, thoughtful, deliberative ways.
The Democratic Party is now entering the post-election navel-gazing stage of self-recrimination and analysis. How did it lose the very people who are supposed to be its target constituents? The puzzle is not that the Democrats lost, but that they can’t see how. Let me make it simple:
When Michael Moore, the unkempt, perennially juvenile propagandist is the face of your party, you lose the grown-ups. When a gum-smacking Ben Affleck is your most articulate celebrity spokesman, you lose regular folks too busy with bills and children to (a) give a rip what Ben Affleck thinks; (b) figure out who he is.
When the news media position, inflate or distort news to advance their political agenda, you lose fair-minded Americans who would rather go with an ordinary man who shares their values than with the pampered darling of the New York bistro set. In a nutshell.
Getting back to real America won’t be an easy trip for many of those now seeking answers. As any of those evangelical Christians who voted Bush will tell you, you have to believe before you can see.
Kathleen Parker may be contacted at kparker@kparker.com
Very well written article.
She summed it up perfectly.
SHHHHH! Kathleen you are giving away the store! Please do not help the RATs out like this! I much prefer that they stay in circular firing squad mode for the next four years.
I'm having soooooo much fun watching these people as they busy themselves reading the tea leaves and eating their young on the C-Span panels.
We are off to our Mega church. I hope that we have a big praise and thank you service this morning.
There came a point in this particular election process when I simply shut the left's opinion out...
Apparently, you were joined by several millions.....who also had the same in-laws.
To me, the most fascinating aspect of these hateful people is the betrayal of their own best interest. My brother's father in law is a retired surgeon,and a professor emeritus at a university. We had what was probably our very last conversation with him before the election. He was an ABB drone.
I asked him, "How could a physician support a consortium of malpractice lawyers?" No real response.
After a futile hour, I closed by saying, "I am not in academia, nor do I belong to the AMA, so I am therefore free to arrive at my own opinions, without fear of losing tenure, or otherwise being strongarmed by the Secret Police, or by being told what to think by the New York Times."
You cannot get funnier that this. This guy is a grown up? A retired psychiatrist? This guy's is dummer than crap and he thinks he is more intelligent than thou, it is beyond hysterical.
These articles should be censored. “ When the enemy is making mistakes why interrupt him or give him aid”
These articles should be censored. “ When the enemy is making mistakes why interrupt him or give him aid”
These articles should be censored. “ When the enemy is making mistakes why interrupt him or give him aid”
"In Joseph’s words, Bush voters are “obtuse,” “short-sighted,” “shoot-from-the-hip” ."
Better than shooting from the rear (smirking like crazy)
Your posts should be censored...so that you only post them once :)
don't worry....be happy. These people are completely incapable of recognizing what is right in front of their face. It could be (and will be, over and over now) explained to them what actually happened, but they will not see it and therefor will continue in the irrecoverable spin-in taking them to irrelevancy. What we have to do now is figure out how to isolate them like an organism isolating a virus.
That's it. That's all she needed to write.
Bravo Kathleen!
I know the many sides of America. I live in Boston and have for 40 years. I grew up in the inner-city in a blue-collar home. My jobs have taken me all over the country and the world. I was also educated in some of the "elite" universities here. So, I have a foot firmly planted in blue and red America.
In blue America, it is like an echo chamber - all they hear are their own voices. The press, politicians, activists, etc., feed off and reinforce each other's opinions.
They have no idea what the real America is like or what the average American feels or thinks. It is like a nice warm cocoon and there is no great desire to see what is outside of it since it is filled with knuckle-dragging, neanderthal, monsters.
Traditional voices inside the echo chambers are oppressed. They are called racists, homophobes, Jesus freaks, bigots, intolerant, greedy, etc., etc. They are kept from expressing their opinions except through outlets like talk radio and the Net. Political correctness is forced upon them to help silence any dissent. Their children are turned against them through a systematic public school indoctrination program which dampens honest discussion even in the home.
Some leave the cocoon for a more accepting environment in a Red State while others, simply keep their mouths shut.
Red America knows what blue America is all about because they have it forced fed to them everyday through the media. They know it and now, they have rejected it as never before.
The good news is, the open-minded, diversity loving fascistic liberals don't get it at all and are not likely to any time soon. This guarantees Republican control over the Federal Government for generations to come. This increased national power holds out hope that the the oppressed majority stuck inside these cocoons will find a way to rise up and be heard.
Good comment! My Dad is not really a conservative and not really a liberal...
I decline to criticize.At least he refuses to applaud the loony left!
Bill K
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