The Charge of Elitism
“If there’s one epithet the right never tires of, it’s ‘elitism.’ So what do Republicans mean by this French word?” Slate reviews the history of a modern political scare word.
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“Republicans are constantly accusing Democrats of [elitism] this campaign season, as when Kentucky Senate nominee Rand Paul attacked President Obama as ‘a liberal elitist…[who] believes that he knows what is best for people.’ With the Tea Party’s rise, conservatives have even begun accusing each other of it, as Sharron Angle, the Nevada GOP nominee did when she charged that Robert Bennett, the outgoing senator from Utah, ‘has become one of the elitists that is no longer in touch.’ Other days, they simply lament that the entire country is falling prey to it, as California Senate nominee Carly Fiorina recently did in asserting that ‘the American Dream is in danger’ because of the ‘elitists’ in charge of the government.”
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