Topic: Liberal Fascism
British voters did the unthinkable last week: they disregarded President Barack Obama’s sage advice. Incredibly, inexplicably, undeterred by his threat to send Britain “to the back of the queue,” these ingrates ignored the Philosopher King-in-Chief’s demand that they vote to keep their country in the European Union. He lost little time in claiming that the Brexit vote, like the campaign of Donald J. Trump, was fueled by “xenophobia” and a fear of “funny-looking people”—a comment that neatly encapsulated the reasons why Trump arose and Leave won.
“Out-of-touch elites” ought, I think, to be classed as a redundancy, since on the available evidence to be a card-carrying elitist is to be utterly clueless. I don’t mean that political, economic, intellectual and cultural elites are stupid as a class. Like all human groupings our various elites exhibit a range of intelligence, from mouth-breather (most Hollywood celebs) to really, really smart (B.H. Obama). But whatever their IQs members of the elites share a common characteristic: ignorance of, and contempt for, ordinary people.
In the collective consciousness of the elites, these feelings are justified by their superior insight and wisdom. The benighted proles simply don’t understand the complexity of the world: its nuances and shades of gray and ambiguities! And how could they, lacking such credentials as a master’s in peace studies or a law degree? In times past our elites were a trifle reticent about voicing such opinions but nowadays they’re not so shy. To hear Michael Moore tell it, Americans are the stupidest people on the planet, bar none—except now, perhaps, for the British people.
All this, of course, is self-serving rubbish. Despite their blather about the complexities of the world the elites didn’t lack for a simplistic solution after the recent terrorist massacre in Orlando. Gun control! Ban “assault weapons” and all will be well! Think about it: Confronted with Islamofascist terror, they demanded action against—white guys living in Flyover Country square states who hug their Bibles and AR-15s in defiance of all that is progressive and enlightened. Banning so-called assault weapons would do nothing to deter terrorists or reduce violent crime, but it would strike a blow against a class of people whom the elites despise. And that was the point. Gun control, Obamacare, the Iran nuclear deal, gender-neutral bathrooms, the European Union, peace studies, electric cars, the school lunch program—all of it is really just a middle finger flourished in the faces of ordinary people for whom the obsessions of the elites are incomprehensible and offensive.
But when it comes to effective action, e.g. measures that actually do decrease “gun violence” such as the NYPD’s late, lamented stop-and-frisk program, the elites are not so enthusiastic. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, a progressive elitist in good standing, made it his business on assuming office to abolish stop-and-frisk—and to wage broad-scale ideological war on the police, crying that their tactics had a disparate impact on “minorities.” Not surprisingly, this discouraged the police from doing their job, which resulted in a spike in violent crime, particularly murder. And speaking of disparate impact, the principal victims of this crime wave in New York and other big cities are—you guessed it—members of minority groups. Nor will you be surprised to learn that the results of his assault on the police has not at all deterred de Blasio and people like him from pressing it with redoubled fanaticism.
But every once in a while the elites find themselves crossed and when that happens, as it has with the ascent of Trump and the Brexit vote, the petulance and venom of the elites provides an amusing spectacle. The latter in particular touched off a broad-scale meltdown, with cries of doom and Armageddon resounding in the media. Barack Obama’s whining and crying about Trump and Brexit is of a piece with the panic of the elites, and I for one am finding it a treat to watch.
