Someone’s smarter than you.
The great divide in this country is not by race or even income, it’s by those who think they are better than everyone else and think they should play by a different set of rules. In West Virginia and Arkansas, we know that when we see it.
—Bill Clinton. Clarksville, West Virginia. 1 May 2008
President Clinton is telling West Virginians that the real problem in this country doesn’t have to do with the economy or racism or health care. The real problem is that someone out there thinks they’re better than you.
Of all the Republican talking points that the Clintons have adopted in the past few months, I find this one the most offensive, precisely because it’s an attitude that keeps things from getting done. There are people who are smarter than me and better than me and I want them in charge.
But in fact the big problem with anti-elitism isn’t that the wrong people get elected; it’s that anti-elitism makes people disparage and avoid the very things — like education and jobs — that can give them opportunities and lead them out of poverty. Anti-elitism is anti-intellectual, but it’s also fundamentally opposed to social mobility. In other words, anti-elitism is, oddly enough, completely opposed to the American dream.
I don’t think Hillary Clinton has much of a shot at the Democratic nomination. But the lengths to which she’s willing to go astound me. She will say anything, do anything, think anything, be anything if she thinks it will help her win. At this point her core values are simply ambition and vanity to the nth degree. But, hey, at least I know she’s not better than me.
