>My friend suggests that the key thread in the right
>wing catalog I've rattled off is that "some people are
>better than others," including you, playing off
>American individualism and pride in pulling oneself up
>by one's bootstraps (in the eyes of God of course, but
>he sanctions the hierarchy too -- doesn't he divide us
>into the damned and the saved?) Is that right, do you
>think? And what thread might we seize on to try to
>enhance to get our favored audience, the working class
>that doesn't even acknowledge that it is a working
>class, to start on the long trek left? My friend is
>absolutely certainly that Thomas Franks type populism,
>them and us, is the wrong place to start, that
>Americans are not going to respond to seeing
>themselves as downtrodden.
>
>Ideas?
I have a few. The first thing I think is to make the most of what advantages you do have. Below something I wrote earlier about American populism, but never got around to actually posting to the list. That comparative distrust of elites is something to work with.
Bill
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Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Re: Political Cartography
At 10:18 AM -0500 21/11/04, Jon Johanning wrote:
>>Sounds like good oldfashioned American populism to me.
>
>Right now, good old-fashioned populism sounds like about the best we
>can do, or even somewhat better than we can do -- our fondest
>aspiration is to work our way back to the 1890s.
There's a lot to be said for good old-fashioned American populism. In the sense that this includes an instinctive trust in the people, as opposed to the instinct to appeal to elites that we more often see in most other places, including Australia to some extent. (I don't think we are as bad as the English for example, but closer to them in this respect than we are to Americans.)
This is the greatest redeeming characteristic of Americans, to me. And yet, even though I admire that trust that Americans have in the people, I can't help noticing that the trust seems mostly misplaced. When it comes to Americans in particular.
Something what goes with this populist instinct is that the American "man in the street" seem to put greater store in their own capacity to make judgements about important social issues than is the case in the rest of the world.
Which may explain why Americans seem extremely ignorant to the world at large. Only in America do the pig ignorant have the nerve to confidently say what they think. Numbskulls everywhere else are generally brought up to understand that their opinions are worthless, so they keep quiet, Americans numbskulls are encouraged to think their opinions is as valuable as anyone else's.
So my theory is that Americans only appear more ignorant on average, because the ignorant are encouraged to speak their mind. A side effect of good old American populism.
But the theory is based rather heavily on a couple of very broad generalisations I suppose. there is probably nothing to it.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas