Red State Elitism

Matthew Yglesias argues that our current culture war (brought to us by our friends, the Republicans) is not about rich and poor, elite and working class, but about two forms of upper middle class snobbery. It's about two competing brands of aspirational consumerism. Rich vs. rich.

Our current crop of candidates offers up some pretty good examples of this. The McCain family is really stinkin’ rich (inheriting multi-million dollar fortunes and owning a dozen houses) but the other three couples on national tickets are well-off on a much more banal scale. The Palin family, the Obama family, and the Biden family all have incomes running into the six figures which is much more than your average American family has. But the Palins choose to spend their money in very different ways. They’re raising five kids, getting into competitive snowmobiling, going on moose hunting expeditions, etc. This isn’t stuff that your typical coastal elites care to do with their time and money, but none of it’s cheap, either. Rather, these are the leisure pursuits of Red America’s economic elite while prosperous people in Blue America are instead raising fewer children in smaller houses that are much more expensive per square foot and spending money on cheese plates rather than moooseburgers.

In other words, the notion that the Palins are some how more in touch with America than the Obamas is nothing more than marketing. It's the myth the Republicans are selling. Like Cowboy Bush and the Crawford ranch, it's all about using imagery to buy the votes of the poor and the working class through the dream of prosperity.

Lest we forget, conservatives are the elites and the good old boys and the special interests that they only pretend to disparage.