Noemie Emery, in the Washington Post, discusses just how the 'elites' get so much, so wrong.
'...America has been a meritocracy from the very beginning, placing John Adams and Alexander Hamilton on the same plane as the children of grandees and planters; the rich and the poor have always shared power; and Ivy credentials have never meant all that much.
There were many routes to the top that did not lead through Harvard, as Presidents Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln can demonstrate. Our best run of presidents was 1933-1963, when a Hudson Valley patroon, a failed haberdasher from Independence, Missouri, a soldier from Abilene and the "first Irish Brahmin" faced the Depression, the Nazis, the Cold War, and desegregation with decent results, and no whining.'
It's a short piece, and very interesting.
Hard to argue with her points; to the ILers, we non-elitists are either bigots or dopes - or both!
ReplyDeleteGreat article, I'd just change one letter here:
"Thinking one can pass a bill that impacts everyone against the will of most of country without courting a backlash is nothing short of insane."