Yeah, Shawn, that Brooks column was enough to make me
abandon my blood feud with Ross Douthat.
What I resent in Brooksian anti-populism is the insinuation that
ordinary Americans are not fit judges of their own self-interest,
and the hidden assumption that the interests of the elite are the
only interests that matter.
In February 2006, when the battle over the (first) immigration
bill was just beginning to strike sparks, I found myself in a
casual conversation with Mark Krikorian, who explained the
political conflict simply as between the Elites (in both parties)
vs. Everybody Else. I spent that spring doing a lot of talk radio
interviews as part of a book promotion and, even though the book
wasn't about immigration, I was frequently asked to respond to the
issue. This was because the audience was extremely interested in
the issue, and the audience was overwhelmingly against any amnesty
for illegals.
Ordinary Americans believe that illegal immigration is harmful
to their interests, they vehemently oppose amnesty, and no amount
of argument is ever going to convince them otherwise. Yet, for the
Brookses of the world, it seems as if this very fact of populist
opposition constitutes proof that amnesty is the way to go: "If the
knuckle-dragging troglodytes in flyover country hate it, it must be
good."
The same calculus seems to be at work in the bailout debate. It
apparently never occurs to elite journalists that what's good for
elite journalists in Washington and New York is not necessarily
good for truck drivers in Tulsa and Tupelo. Rather, the chattering
classes attribute this to the presumed ignorance of the benighted
plebes.
topics:
Immigration
