I engaged in a dialogue on a local blog in my community with a republican who continues to attack Barack Obama as an elitist. Today, he attacked me as an elitist snob, as well:
Last time I checked with my partners, who are wealthy by your definition [making over $250,000/year -ed.], we opened up a gym, two B&Bs, a new vineyard and an acting troupe. ...you don't know the group you are trying to predict behavior about - again, class warfare, typical liberal snottiness.
In Hollywood however, the criteria for success has nothing to do with leadership, or building a business one brick at a time. Hence the fast money Hollywood types develop their elitist snobbery, a lot like Barack H. Obama,
According to my dictionary, elitism is
The belief that certain persons or members of certain classes or groups deserve favored treatment by virtue of their perceived superiority, as in intellect, social status, or financial resources.
At the same time, they say we are socialists, wanting to incite class warfare. Elitism and socialism are inherently contradictory.
Socialism is a broad political philosophy and cannot be described simply. Its origins lie in the observation that excessive poverty and inequality result from worker exploitation. The owning/employing class reaps more economic reward from the product of the working class than the working class reaps in producing the product (surplus value).
The elitism label is far better-suited to republicans. They argue that the wealthy merit tax breaks so they can fulfill their role as "benefactors" to the underprivileged working class by providing them with work (so-called 'trickle-down-economics'). They fight measures such as increased wages or healthcare that are designed to help workers have a greater share in the final value of the work they produce. They fight for the privilege of imposing their own tax (in the form of interest or late/overdraft fees) on the working class for borrowing money (credit)--money accumulated from profiting off the goods and services furnished by the working class.
Big business owners--which trend republican--reward their CEOs with multi-million dollar bonuses, whereas the janitor who manually labors 8 hours a day gets minimum wage, a rate influenced by the owner/employer. Major employers spend money to lobby against having to spend more money paying their lowest-earning employees. This evidences their elitist belief that intelligence and/or social status deserve greater compensation than less intellectual but equally demanding work.
Why does a CEO get multi-million dollar bonuses for sitting behind a comfy desk in an air conditioned office whereas the man working the oil drill, sweating away under a hot Texas sun, can't meet his mortage payment? Why do Republicans like McCain support giving the CEO more tax breaks on his multi-million dollar bonus yet plan to tax the oil worker on his healthcare benefits?
Republicans eschew programs to raise members of the working class into the ranks of owners/employers. McCain consistently opposes minimum wage increases. He opposes legislation to equalize pay between women and men (who disproportionately comprise the owner/employer class). McCain opposed a GI bill offering soldiers (predominantly working class) educational opportunities to help them rise above that class with the justification that "it was necessary" for them to be held within this class longer. Republicans largely oppose healthcare for all--healthcare owner/employer members of society can afford but the poor cannot.
Nowhere is this elitism more evident than in republican opposition to raising the FICA tax cap. FICA taxes fund Social Security and Medicare (though revenue is more often used to run the government) and are assessed at a flat rate, whether you earn $25,000 or $2,500,000. Those earning less than $102,000 pay FICA on 100% of gross income. As one's earnings go up, you pay FICA on a diminishing percentage of your gross income. The richest Americans pay FICA on less than 1% of their gross income--and are still eligible to collect Social Security).
The most conservative Republicans want to eliminate Social Security, and privatization is a sneaky way of achieving this. Only those who have money to invest in private savings accounts would benefit. Further, they stand to benefit by collecting money from workers who invest and using it to play the market, in turn accumulating more wealth, and charging fees to the workers to manage their money for them. Merrill Lynch could not even manage it's own finances--would anyone really want it managing theirs?
I am tired of being called an elitist and a snob; I am tired of having my candidates (all from working class backgrounds) described as elitists and snobs simply because they are intelligent and hardworking. Many other Americans are tiring of it, too.
My boyfriend's father was raised in Kentucky, voted for Reagan, and has remained politically independent. His forebearers served in every US conflict since the American Revolution (his father won America's second-highest honor in WWII). He is the first of his family to attend college, earning a PhD from Harvard. This year, he's supporting Barack Obama, because, as he put it, "I'm tired of being labeled an elitist because I went to Harvard, like it's something I should be ashamed of." On the stump, republicans spit out the names of Ivy League colleges as though they were institutions for deviants (unless their own children are attending).
Republicans, I ask that you forgive my elitism in not seeing the need to eliminate taxes on stock market winnings (earned without effort) or $2 million dollar inheritances (the product of someone else's effort). Or failing to support tax breaks for companies reaching new profit records each quarter after gouging every-day Americans at the gas pump.
Republican philosophies are flat-out wrong and un-American. It is unfortunate so many poor Americans are hypnotized by the monotonous repetition of garbage fed to them and believe making the rich richer somehow can help them get rich, too.
This line of attack works only because it feeds on the working class' resentment at being poor and struggling. You see, when someone inherits wealth, they're merely fortunate. But when someone rises from the ranks of the working class to achieve greatness, those who remain behind may examine their own lives. They work hard, so why didn't they make it, too? It diminishes self-esteem and arouses resentment. They transfer this diminished self-esteem into resentment at the guy who "escaped,"; because they look down on themselves, they imagine he must, too. If he is a rich republican, he probably does, because rich republicans believe anyone can make it out of the working class if they try hard enough and that anyone who fails to do so simply did not work hard enough.
I confess to be among the 2% that will take a hit under Obama's tax plan (despite being nowhere close to rich). Yet, I grew up poor and my relatives are still poor. What republicans call elitist I refer to as remembering where I came from.
If Republicans truly want people to have more "of their" money, why not support minimum wage increases? Or charge less for gas? How about dropping the $35 late payment/overdraft fees? And stop jacking up interest rates to 30% for a missed payment when someone is down on their luck? No doubt many republican voters have experienced this financial gouging, yet how many realize it is primarily republican-operated companies that lobby against reforming them? They lobby for the right to continue picking the pocket of the working class.
Rich people are only rich because of the money we have given them. If they voluntarily agree to reduce their profit margin and pay wages more proportional to the value of what workers produce, I will gladly support not raising their taxes.
In truth, it is because I am the opposite of an elitist that I support the democratic party. I believe I deserve no more than anyone else, and we are equals not only in America but in the world. Though I am not religious, I believe in the universal equality Jesus preached. Republican leaders, on the other hand--the moneylenders in the temple--believe they deserve all the prize money because they worked harder than everyone else and that if you haven't made it yet, it's your own damned fault.