I meant to add earlier that I WAS surprised earlier this year - or maybe last year - when one of the Republican primary candidates made a specifically derogatory reference to San Francisco. I hadn’t heard that from an actual candidate before. But I don’t remember the details.
I think this comparison would only be apt if the nightclub comic says something like, “You know, the best audiences in the country are right here in Bakersfield; those people in Palmdale are a waste of my time.”
The difference is that you can be “second best”, or something other than “the best”, without necessarily being “the worst”. The implication of calling one group of people “true americans” is that the other group consists of “fake americans”.
That may be the logical extension, but it ignores the nuance. When politicians propose “solutions that are good for Main Street but not Wall Street”, it emphasizes that somehow, the denizens of the financial world are Other. Consistent repetition of the worst manufactured stereotypes further erodes public discourse, especially when real issues are at stake.
Obviously. The root of the problem is the perception that a Republican who campaigns like this is just “playing to the base”, but a Democrat is actually being offensive. Why is it acceptable for the Republican base to be trash? Why can’t a Democrat get away with playing to a liberal elite base by slagging on the heartland? This is a factual question, not a normative one. I think that this kind of rhetoric is toxic and should not be used by anyone. But seeing as we don’t live in that world, I am struggling to understand why it is not able to be used by everyone in roughly equal measure.
You know, I’ve lived in both “pro-America” and “anti-America” and I’m pretty offended by this shit. I think it’s insulting and borderline McCarthyism.
In the spirit of complete openness I think it’s only fair to admit that we here in the large urban areas, do look differently at those in the smaller towns and rural areas. But honestly, this is only really prevalent in the largest of cities in the us like NYC and LA and SF, etc. I doubt you find this smugness in smaller cities. But people in the cities who look at people in the countryside as unsophisticated, don’t see them as un-American.
Now again, I can see why it is natural for those in the countryside to feel inadequate of us big-city folks and our big-city ways. We can sure be smug about it and snooty as hell (I try not to be). And normally this kind of stuff manifests itself through the normal bigotry against “city-folk” that has been caried out in real life and in film for decades. I grew up in a small town and was able to feel the palpable resistance to such folk the rare occasions that we did encounter them. I knew a guy who went up and lived in Boston and came back talking about all kinds of strange things, and he was roundly ridiculed behind his back.
This is simply the nature of rural USA. This relationship exists in almost any country to some extent. There’s always some kind of region or group that is considered simpler, and they always react with suspicion and exaggerated pride.
Why is “Southern Culture” so lauded in the US? Sure, we have a lot of stuff to be proud of on merit, but a lot of other stuff just gets elevated to special status due to the fact that it was ours.
But honestly, calling the ubanized folk “Anti-American” is goddamned treason. We’re all in this together and while we might not want to change places, it doesn’t make one better than the other. You NEVER hear democrats, as a matter of policy disparage any part of the Union, while Republicans regularly talk trash about Massachusetts, New York, California, etc.
Yes, you can bring up Obama’s clinging to guns, and Howard Dean’s mention of how he wanted to get the guy with a pickup truck and rebel flag on his truck, but the difference there is that the Democrats were mainly intended to include. Dean wanted that guy with the rebel flag’s vote. Obama wanted to reach out to those gun owners. Sarah Palin? Well she’s saying that they’re somehow not as worthy.
Somehow the firefighters on 9/11 aren’t “real Americans” because they don’t live in a subdivision in south-western VA. People are just as proud of our country in the big cities as they are in the smaller towns.
And also, let’s not forget, that if we “anti-American” parts of the country decided to stop giving our money to you “pro-American” parts then you’d be in a world of hurt. In nearly every state, the “anti-american” areas that vote liberal are by and large the economic drivers of said states and collectively the nation.
I saw the Police in concert in 1983. Twice, in fact – once in DC, once in Pittscurgh. Their opening band was the Go-Gos.
Belinda Carlisle told the Pittsburgh crowd they were the best audience they’d played for,
And then the next night in DC, she said the same thing.
Now, it’s possible she truly meant that the Pittsburghers were the tour highlights up 'til that night, and then DC topped even that standard the next night.
I find it infinitely more likely that she just said that at every concert, though.
And I didn’t feel she meant to “inextricably contain the connotation” that everywhere else had audiences that sucked.
But to the extent that Palin meant, seriously, that other places were anti-American, fake American, or otherwise undesirable, I agree it’s a negative message and should not be applauded. I don’t get that sense from what she said, but if it’s what she meant, I condemn it.
Except for, oddly enough, Pittsburgh, because that city really does suck. 
She didn’t say nobody else anywhere was good.
I just think it’s not a big deal. Stupid and ignorant, yes, but just not something I can get really worked up about.
I saw the Police in concert in 1983. Twice, in fact – once in DC, once in Pittscurgh. Their opening band was the Go-Gos.
Belinda Carlisle told the Pittsburgh crowd they were the best audience they’d played for,
And then the next night in DC, she said the same thing.
Now, it’s possible she truly meant that the Pittsburghers were the tour highlights up 'til that night, and then DC topped even that standard the next night.
I find it infinitely more likely that she just said that at every concert, though.
And I didn’t feel she meant to “inextricably contain the connotation” that everywhere else had audiences that sucked.
But to the extent that Palin meant, seriously, that other places were anti-American, fake American, or otherwise undesirable, I agree it’s a negative message and should not be applauded. I don’t get that sense from what she said, but if it’s what she meant, I condemn it.
Except for, oddly enough, Pittsburgh, because that city really does suck.
I am interested in hearing a more charitable interpretation. To call any particular place and its characteristics “real”, I infer that other places that do not share these characteristics must be “fake”. do you have an alternative way of thinking about this?
It is an insult to city dwellers. It is a special insult to New Yorkers who actually took a terrorist hit. Try telling them 9/12 they weren’t patriotic. It is base political pandering and they should be ashamed. But, they are not. They will do anything to win.
As Sarah Vowell said on TDS recently, (paraphrased) “if New York is American enough for Al Qaeda, it should be American enough for Republicans.”
Fair enough and I understand the mechanism at work here.
However, Belinda Carlisle is a pop singer and not someone I am looking to hire to represent me in the second highest office in the country.
Suppose Barack Obama went to San Francisco and said, “I believe that the best of America is in these big cities. Its so nice to spend time with the real Americans who value education and learning, Americans with integrity, good Americans, the real Americans who know that its OK to criticize your country. This is where we find Americans who are smart, good-looking, and wise.”
Bricker, you mean to tell us that you would interpret these comments as mere rock-band-style crowd-pleasing?
It’s puffery. It’s a meaningless comment. In the same way that someone might praise a ditch digger or a trash hauler as doing “real work.” The intent is not to say that accountants and actors are somehow defrauding their employers by doing “fake” work and getting paid for it – is it?
Nobody rocks like…SPRINGFIELD!
It depends on whether or not you puff everyone up. If she said the same thing to actors and accountants, then sure. But Palin doesn’t. I maintain that when you juxtapose her comments with her Main Street/Wall Street remarks and her other pandering populism, a truer picture emerges. A comment is only meaningless if you can imagine her saying it for any configuration of people.
I am having a very hard time imagining Palin coming to give a talk to me and my colleagues downtown, thanking us for doing the real work of lending money and keeping the credit markets moving.
Yeah.
The more specific the praise heaped on the audience, the more likely the inference that the intent is to contrast that audience with others.
Those are pretty specific praises.
And as I read your sample words, I realize there’s another dynamic in play.
Earlier I spoke about talking to the ditch-digger and saying he does “real work.” I don’t think such a comment would raise anyone’s eyebrows.
But a similar comment to a group of Hollywood megastars wouldn’t go the same way, because they’re already privileged in occupation. In other words, we can safely praise the “real work” of the ditch digger because it makes a virtue of a job (or a state of being) that’s not aspired to by thousands.
So “I believe that the best of America is in these big cities,” and “Americans with integrity, good Americans, the real Americans who know that its OK to criticize your country,” are not a problem. But “Its so nice to spend time with the real Americans who value education and learning,” is a problem, because it suggests that the failure to acquire higher learning is a matter of lack of desire, not life’s circumstances. And placing that line in the middle of the rest taints the whole thing.
In contrast, it’s safer to implicitly praise things like integrity, goodness, and the like.
I live in a state full of small towns. I think that the real myth is that small towns share some sort of higher standard of values. For every Hooterville, there are an equal or greater number of shitholes that reflect no better, and more likely, worse “values” than the big cities she labels as un-American.
Those are extremely weak distinctions. Valuing education is more specific than loving one’s country? How so? Only some people can value education, but everyone can be patriotic? Why can’t people from small towns value education?
Because “loving one’s country” doesn’t really have measurable metrics.
“Valuing education” suggests … getting education.
My emphasis. Is this intentionally inconsistent with the typical conservative position of rugged individualism and equality of opportunity? This idea is a key axiom of many entitlement programs, from affirmative action to subsidized student loans. Many of the Hollywood megastars and finance big shots arose to fortune from very humble origins. Why is it wrong to praise the winners?