The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    Michael Maiello's picture

    Ross Douthat Wants To Be Ruled By The Rich

    By Michael Maiello on Wed, 08/29/2012 - 1:21pm | Politics

    Since David Brooks made a funny, the universe has been out of balance.  Ross Douthat, Brooks' mini-me conservative in The New York Times op-ed land, has righted the balance with a perfectly ridiculous column about Ann Romney's convention speech.

    In it, Douthat criticizes Ann for trying to cast Romney as an Everyman and encourages her to embrace her husband's true identity, as a patrician WASP who just happens to be a Mormon.  Douthat describes a born leader who is doing us a favor by even considering a term or two in the Oval Office.  This is one of those columns where the one of the most powerful and prestigious positions in all of the world is described as "public service."

    I'll let Douthat unpack it for you:

    "It’s an argument for Ann Romney’s husband that could have been made on behalf of the old white Anglo-Saxon ruling class with whose Social Registered members he shares so many qualities. You don’t have to love him, the more effective parts of her speech implied, or relate to him, or even always necessarily agree with him. But you can trust him with the presidency, because he’s suited to public service, and he was born and raised and trained to do this job."

    Not too subtle.  Hey, average America, Romney should lead you because he's better than you are (and we was born, bred and trained that way).  This is largely what the election is about.  Should we give the White House back to an out of touch white man with pretensions of being better than everyone else?  That's what Douthat would like.  It's also what Brooks begged for in July when he fantastized about the rise of a better elite who could tell us all how to live.

    What I find scary, though, is that there are a lot of people out there like Brooks and Douthat who would like to be led around by their betters.  For some, it's a bit of a fantasy. 

    Topics: 
    Politics

    Comments

    What's weird is the way all these memes invert and mean their opposite. Or maybe it's a case of Orwellian speech where white means black and so on.

    I'm referring to the fact that Republicans and conservatives have long pitched their philosophy as anti-elitist and toward the "every man."

    Maybe the best example of this is Buckley's statement that he'd rather be governed by the first 10 names in the New York City phone book than the Harvard faculty.

    I may have this a bit wrong, but that was the general idea.


    by Anonymous PS (not verified) on Wed, 08/29/2012 - 3:08pm

     

    “The institution of Royalty in any form is an insult to the human race.”

    Mark Twain

     

     


    by chucktrotter on Wed, 08/29/2012 - 8:55pm

    Brooks argues that the elites are bright people who lack a moral code. Romney seems to fit this mold. Until they so-called elites develop morals, why should we want them in office?

    I was confused by Brooks' analogy of the French and American revolutions. He feels society was upended in France and preserved in The United States. Was he taught the same Revolutionary War that I was taught? The British were the elites and they got thrown out., how was the structure not upended?


    by rmrd0000 on Thu, 08/30/2012 - 10:13am

    The revolution was what we call elite on elite violence. George W, for instance, was right there in the 1%, likewise all but a few of the signers of the declaration. Certainly.all at the 1787 convention. Conspicuously absent from our revolutionary creed: Equality and Fraternity (cf France)

    by jollyroger on Thu, 08/30/2012 - 4:13pm

    "All men are created equal" was the motto

    (except women  and the 3/5 folks)


    by rmrd0000 on Thu, 08/30/2012 - 4:24pm

    And, of course, property owners.  Because if you don't own property, what cause would you have to even care about politics?


    by Michael Maiello on Thu, 08/30/2012 - 4:36pm

    Douthat's description makes him sound a bit like Bush 41. 

    Our day's CP, in its extremism and loopy, wildly impractical and dangerous radicalism, is the Catfood Party.  (Rumor has it R/R's first move after voucherizing Medicare and privatizing SS will be to press for legislation renaming Florida as the Catfood State, although Arizona is said to be seeking first dibs on the name.)  It right now is in the business of trying to make itself sound less scary than the Socialist Party of the Others, the Democrats, led by their scary incumbent, The Supreme Other. 

    So Ryan tells us the Catfood ticket has come not to bury Medicare but to save it.  We the people are expected like good sheep to believe that.  Romney's telegenic, earnest-looking sons reassure us that for their dad it's "not about ego" (resurrecting the Obama-as-vain- egomaniac theme from 4 years ago, as if anyone seeking the presidency doesn't have a sizable ego): he "just likes to help people".   Romney's best selling point in the Douthat view is that he is, above all, safe.  He won't do anything stupid.  Like all those crazy Socialist things, giving the stuff that We rightfully earned to Them, that Obama has done.  (or like put a certifiable loon like Paul Ryan a heartbeat away from the presidency, should Romney win.  Right?)

    Under the scenario Jon Chait wrote of in New York magazine the other day, if Romney/Ryan do win, and are able to pull off that agenda or even just set it on a very hard-to-revoke course, the party would have "succeeded" in implementing a program considerably more radical than Reagan ever proposed, or even ever intimated he supported.  (Would even Barry Goldwater want to go as far as R/R may?  If they succeed, Barry's beloved Arizona might just evaporate into the desert air.)  And we know what happened to Bush 43 when he tried to partially privatize SS just 7 years ago.  Reagan and Bush 43 would be seen in retrospect as forerunners of The True Randian Chosen One.  Romney in that scenario might not need to rely on the opinions of others to have himself immortalized on Mount Rushmore.  He might simply cut to the chase by buying the property instead.   

    At long last, after decades in the wilderness creating many new new problems for ourselves while solving few of the ones we had, is this what we have come to in our society?  Where a Romney/Ryan ticket and an off-the-charts Republican party actually have a chance to retake control of our federal government?  If the Democrats can't come up with a better narrative--just about any narrative at all may do--they might just manage to give this one away.  Hard to beat something with nothing--even if the something pretty much defines idiocy.     

    As for those who fancy that we need a R/R win to grow the Democratic party a spine, the time to flush this nuttiness, this cruel joke of a political party, down the drain, in the most resounding fashion possible, is now.  Not next year, from a position of far greater weakness.  You don't grow greater will to fight by hoping for, or even working for, defeat.  It's a copout.  It's saying "next year we'll do it".  Sure. 

    If the GOP does win the WH and Congress, I say to those folks: don't worry.  There'll be plenty of opportunity to fight then.  The problem is that much of the activist energy in that scenario goes to keeping things from getting even worse, not actually making things better, which is the vastly preferable course that needs to be pursued if November's outcome is different.   


    by AmericanDreamer on Thu, 08/30/2012 - 10:44am

    If we lose the White House and Congress to the Republicans in their current weakened state, we should not expect to be able to mount much credible opposition.  If their party is weak now, what would it say about ours to lose to them?  Forget keeping things from getting worse.  We'd have to ignore policy entirely to rebuild the party from the ground up.


    by Michael Maiello on Thu, 08/30/2012 - 1:23pm

      Saying Romney is the right man for the job isn't saying "he's better than all of you". What was the guy supposed to say, "Romney doesn't deserve the office, but vote for him anyway"?


    by Aaron Carine (not verified) on Thu, 08/30/2012 - 6:46pm

    The funny thing to me is that I think Douthat nailed the Romneys. They are like old-school Boston Brahmins. What makes it funny is that Douthat seems to think it's a positive political attribute in 2012. Maybe he's too young to remember how ruling-WASP George W. Bush beat out ruling-WASP Gore and ruling-WASP Kerry with the help of a Texas twang and an ax.


    by Michael Wolraich on Thu, 08/30/2012 - 7:59pm

    Before reading your link I thought I should first watch/listen to the speech and I did, both.  My takeaway is that Ross must love Dynasty reruns.  


    by EmmaZahn on Thu, 08/30/2012 - 8:09pm

    The Romneys after two years in WH?


    by Elusive Trope on Thu, 08/30/2012 - 8:11pm


    by EmmaZahn on Thu, 08/30/2012 - 8:17pm