Populism, Elitism and What I Haven't Done

[livius drusus]

I should warn y'all up front that this post is not going to be particularly coherent, but I'd like to get some of my cluttered thoughts down and see if I can make some sense of them.

I used to subscribe to a little newspaper called The Progressive Populist. You can't tell now because it's all about the war/election, but back before Bush made us all crazy, the paper focused on classic populist issues: support for independent farmers and ranchers, small businesses, environmental degradation, combatting corporate and government excesses, a focus on national politics over foreign entanglements, etc. Now it seems those issues are either completely insignificant in our political discourse, or used for rhetorical name recognition in support of some tax package.

It's easy to blame everyone who voted for Bush. It's easy to say there's something wrong with them because they didn't see what I see, but you know what? I kinda think it's my fault.

I have lived an incredibly privileged life. I've contributed money and time to causes I respect, but I've never made a stump speech, never even talked about progressive politics with anyone besides people predisposed to agree with me. Hell, I've never even seen a midwestern farm, so why should anyone look at me with my big words and liberal arts degree and superior attitude and think anything but that I'm a patronizing, elitist, book nerd who thinks she knows something when she's done nothing?

The truth is I am the Liberal Elite and like most of my ilk, I have exactly zero resonance with the people who once spurred the Progressive movement and now abjure it. People like George Bush, who has led far more of a privileged existence than I, do a much better job of reaching out to such people even though his policies seem to me to be the antithesis of populism.

I don't know. Maybe the age of genuine populism is gone. It's not like it was a gigantic movement that swept the nation or anything. It's just that I still see it in local government, and I certainly see the perversions of it resonating with people, so it seems to me that the failure is mine.