Joe Wurzelbacher probably didn’t intend to draw the wrath of the
elite when he
gave an interview
to Christianity
Today. But the fiery thunderbolts hurled from our
cultural Olympus are crashing all around Joe the Plumber now.
“I’ve had some friends that are actually homosexual,”
Wurzelbacher said. “And, I mean, they know where I stand, and
they know that I wouldn’t have them anywhere near my children.”
In a free country, we are told, everybody has a right to their
own opinion. Wurzelbacher is quickly learning that, according to
the American elite, what you actually have a right to is
their opinion.
There are certain subjects – and homosexuality is certainly one
of them – where the elite have reached a consensus about the
limits of permissible discourse, and no one who aspires to
influence in American society can be allowed to contradict that
consensus.
The suggestion that homosexuals might be a harmful influence on
children is an opinion so at odds with the elite consensus that
Joe the Plumber could not have inspired more furious denunciation
if he had quoted Mein Kampf.
Yet it is a fact that the Boy Scouts do not accept gay
scoutmasters, and it is a fact that — despite the Pentagon’s
“don’t ask, don’t tell” policy — homosexual behavior is still
prohibited under the Universal Code of Military Justice.
Four decades after the Stonewall riot in New York that is
generally cited as the spark that ignited the gay-rights
movement, attitudes like Joe’s remain far more widespread than
you might realize if all you knew of American opinion was what
you’ve seen in the news media. Despite the elite consensus –
which is so influential in New York, Hollywood and Washington,
D.C. – the average resident of Lucas County, Ohio, probably
agrees with Wurzelbacher.
Joe the Plumber is an Ordinary American, someone whose existence
is lived outside the world where elite opinion is ubiquitous and
omnipotent.
The Ordinary American is not a journalist, a movie producer, an
academic or a politician. News media, entertainment, education
and politics are endeavors that shape public attitudes, and for
this reason the elite have striven for decades to exclude from
those fields anyone who might dispute their consensus.
Everyone jokes about “political correctness,” but humor aside –
and the PC commissars can be frighteningly humorless about such
things – those who contradict the consensus in elite professions
risk career suicide. Just ask Larry Summers, whose
mild dissent from feminist dogma made him persona
non grata at Harvard University.
Because of his long record of accomplishment and his status as a
liberal Democrat in good standing, Summers had other
opportunities beyond Harvard. Imagine, however, if Summers had
been a mere graduate student, or an untenured faculty member. The
elite feminists made an example of Summers, to inspire terror in
the hearts of any upstart academic who might have considered
questioning their consensus. Torquemada at the height of the
Inquisition could not have more effectively intimidated heretics.
Of course, it’s not just gay rights or feminism. It’s also
everything from religion to economics to race relations to global
warming. On any subject that interests the elite, there is a
consensus — and, make no mistake, it is an identifiably liberal
or “progressive” consensus — against which one argues at peril
of destruction.
Why doesn’t the Ordinary American endorse the consensus? Or,
perhaps more accurately, why does the Ordinary American (whatever
his personal opinion on such issues) not become furiously angry
when he encounters dissent from the consensus?
Well, if you’re a plumber — or an accountant or a truck driver
or a small business owner — your ability to fulfill your hopes
and ambitions is not dependent on the approval of the elite. For
most people in Toledo, Ohio, getting hired or getting promoted
has nothing to do with their willingness to parrot the “correct”
opinion on tax cuts or foreign policy.
The nurse or construction worker in Toledo (or Tucson or Tulsa)
may have very strong and well-informed opinions on political
issues, but nobody really cares about their opinions except maybe
at election time.
Therefore, the Toledo plumber unabashedly shares his honest
opinion and if you disagree, fine. It never occurs to Joe
Wurzelbacher that speaking bluntly about homosexuality might
offend anyone. Like he says, he has gay friends and they know
where he stands – and it doesn’t really bother them because
(brace yourself for a shock) some Ordinary Americans are gay.
Ordinary Americans may be Democrats or Republicans or neither.
They may be gay or straight, black or white, Hispanic or Asian.
They may be rich or poor, but most are somewhere in the broad
middle. They don’t define themselves by the categories of
ideology or identity politics that are so important to the elite.
In Ohio, it matters more whether you cheer for the Reds or the
Indians than whether you’re liberal or conservative.
Why do I relate more easily to guys like Joe Wurzelbacher than to
the elites who condemn him? Maybe it’s because I spent most of my
life far from Washington, D.C., where nobody cared about my
opinions. Maybe it’s because my family and friends — my
truck-driving brothers, my childhood buddy the school cafeteria
supervisor, my sister-in-law the dental hygienist – are so much
like Joe.
The ironic point is that a guy like Joe the Plumber doesn’t care
the least what you or I think of him. He doesn’t care whether we
like him or not. He is proudly independent and unafraid to speak
his mind. He is that extraordinary individual, the Ordinary
American.
