Wednesday February 29, 2012

THE HARD BIGOTRY OF LOW EXPECTATIONS. The sad thing about the Santorum snob comment is, I can imagine a society where you don't have to have a college degree to have dignity and the prospect of a decent life -- because I was born into that society, and I've seen it under assault for years, as manufacturing jobs are pissed away and unions are busted by people who portray themselves as champions of the working class.

So I'd like to believe Santorum was trying to get to a sensible point about this, and just had the usual trouble expressing himself. But this is clearly not the case. From Robert Costa's tongue-bath at National Review:

"The last I checked, about a third of the people in this country have a college degree,” [Republican operative] Musgrave says. Santorum’s remark, she says, connects with voters who are skeptical of Obama’s emphasis on higher education, which is a costly endeavor for many families and unnecessary for many workers...

[Campaign advisor] Brabender acknowledges that Santorum’s jibes may not be warmly received by reporters or by every voter. But he does not expect Santorum to back away from calling Obama a snob or touting the benefits of growing the economy in ways that do not revolve around academic credentials.

“What Obama and Romney do not understand is that there is a lot of passion and anger out there,” Brabender says. “There is a sense that our basic freedoms are being destroyed. People are gravitating around somebody who is not shy, who stands up and says what they really believe.”

This is how you talk when you have propaganda instead of a policy. These people have no coherent plan for restoring a blue-collar economy except trickle-down bullshit draped in moldy populism.  They yelled when Obama bailed out Detroit and saved the kind of jobs they claim to honor, and propose to replace this approach with tax cuts and "passion and anger."

Refresh my memory: Who are the class warriors, again?