Progressive elite dismissing rural, white America as illegitimate? One writer provides evidence

The progressive elite is starting to dismiss rural white America as illegitimate, and vice-versa." So wrote libertarian economist Arnold Kling this week, and his comment got a lot more circulation when David Brooks used it in his latest column for The New York Times, arguing against a strong racial basis for opposition to President Obama's program.

Kling writes for the Library of Economics and Liberty, EconLib for short, financed by Indianapolis-based Liberty Fund Inc., which says it is "a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals."

Kling wrote that the increasing division is "an open rupture. In the 1960's, a Hubert Humphrey or Robert Kennedy could connect with uneducated white voters. The idea of blowing them off was unthinkable, if only because they were such a large majority of the voting population at the time. Now, the elitism of President Obama and his supporters has reached in-your-face levels. They have utter contempt for the Tea Party-ers, and the Tea-Party-ers know it." (Read more)

Joe Klein, left, of Time magazine provided evidence for Kling's observation with an item on the Swampland blog that said the tea-party types are "primarily working-class, largely rural and elderly white people" and "The things that scare the teabaggers -- the renewed sense of public purpose and government activism, the burgeoning racial diversity, urbanity and cosmopolitanism -- are among the things I find most precious and exhilarating about this country."

The Daily Yonder takes issue in a Yonder Flash item: "So, all the good stuff in the country is urban and cosmopolitan while the 'racists and the nativists' with their 'pinched, paranoid sensibilities' are 'largely rural.' We learned this in a column Joe Klein wrote to warn everyone about the dangers of prejudice." The Yonder also notes that "the first teabag town hall was in Austin, Texas; we saw one in St. Louis. Both are cities of note." (Read more)