Elitism? Yes Please!

There has been a definite shift in the type of individual that Americans want occupying the Oval Office since the founding of the country. I'm not talking about changes in political parties or the fact that women and African-Americans are now being considered for the presidency. This shift really has taken place since the advent of television and has grown more and more dominent as that form of entertainment has solidified its own dominence in our culture.

Historically, we wanted GREAT MEN to lead us. We wanted men apart from the every day, who were well educated, and who aspired to be better than what passed for everyday life in our country. Hell, we wanted men who seemingly fulfilled those aspirations and who were thought better than the citizens whom they served.

What do we want now? Let me put it this way: One of the most-heard refrains from the 2000 election, later repeated in 2004, was that folks liked George Bush more as a candidate "because they'd rather grab a beer with him" than with his opponent. Our politics has degenerated into the question of who is more like us.

But why on earth do we want to see ourselves in the White House? By most measures, I'm a pretty smart, well-educated fellow and let me tell you what... I want someone vastly smarter and better educated than am I at the head of my government. I want someone who is far more worldly, who has seen a great deal more than I have. I want a "man of action," but who will think things through thoroughly before he acts. Exactly when in our society did having an education become a proverbial "four letter word?" When did having a background far outside the norm become something to ridicule rather than something to trumpet?

The conservative commentator George Will recently wrote an opinion piece in Newsweek that touched on this subject. One part in particular sums our situation up nicely, doing so by outlining past circumstances as a counterpoint.

Charges of "elitism" are hardy perennials, but surely Americans can accept two axioms. The first is: The central principle of republican government is representation, under which the people do not decide issues, they decide who shall decide. The second is: Elections decide not whether elites shall rule but which elites shall rule.

Robert Alphonso Taft (1889–1953), the son of President William Howard Taft, became known as "Mr. Republican" during his 14 years as a U.S. senator from Ohio. He was a conservative representing a state whose electorate included many farmers and blue-collar industrial workers, and opponents charged that he was out of touch with such ordinary people. In 1947 a reporter asked Mrs. Taft, "Do you think of your husband as a common man?" Aghast, she replied:

"Oh, no, no! The senator is very uncommon. He was first in his class at Yale and first in his class at the Harvard Law School. We wouldn't permit Ohio to be represented in the Senate by just a common man."

In 1950, Taft was re-elected in a landslide.

Indeed so. Why should our nation as a whole settle for any less?

11 September 2008