The Snare of Privilege
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
NYT Week in Review
WASHINGTON — Hillary Rodham Clinton, Wellesley ’69, Yale Law ’73 and the first lady of the land for eight years, is suddenly a working-class heroine of guns and whiskey shots. Barack Obama, Columbia ’83 and Harvard Law ’91, visits bowling alleys and beer halls and talks about his single mother who lived on food stamps.
John S. McCain III, United States Naval Academy ’58, the son and grandson of admirals and the husband of one of the richer women in Arizona, chases after the conservative, anti-elite religious base of the Republican Party, and prefers to talk about the “cabin” at his Sedona weekend retreat rather than the Phoenix home lushly featured in the pages of Architectural Digest in 2005.
In an increasingly populist country, it’s not surprising that all three presidential contenders have been sprinting away from the elitist label for much of this primary season. But do they really expect to get away with it?
More to the point, should they? Don’t voters want the best and brightest, and best-credentialed, rising to the top?
Not exactly. Americans have been ambivalent about elites since the nation was founded by revolutionaries who were also, in many cases, landed gentry. And status and wealth still play an outsize role in our supposedly classless society.
(Continued here.)
NYT Week in Review
WASHINGTON — Hillary Rodham Clinton, Wellesley ’69, Yale Law ’73 and the first lady of the land for eight years, is suddenly a working-class heroine of guns and whiskey shots. Barack Obama, Columbia ’83 and Harvard Law ’91, visits bowling alleys and beer halls and talks about his single mother who lived on food stamps.
John S. McCain III, United States Naval Academy ’58, the son and grandson of admirals and the husband of one of the richer women in Arizona, chases after the conservative, anti-elite religious base of the Republican Party, and prefers to talk about the “cabin” at his Sedona weekend retreat rather than the Phoenix home lushly featured in the pages of Architectural Digest in 2005.
In an increasingly populist country, it’s not surprising that all three presidential contenders have been sprinting away from the elitist label for much of this primary season. But do they really expect to get away with it?
More to the point, should they? Don’t voters want the best and brightest, and best-credentialed, rising to the top?
Not exactly. Americans have been ambivalent about elites since the nation was founded by revolutionaries who were also, in many cases, landed gentry. And status and wealth still play an outsize role in our supposedly classless society.
(Continued here.)
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