The Real Divide is Only in Elitist Minds

Victor Davis Hanson bats another one out of the park with this essay in the San Francisco Chronicle: bq. Are things really as ghastly as they appear this election year? President Bush is derided as a liar, brain-dead and a coward, not just by fringe groups but by prominent members of the Democratic establishment. Major intellectuals and artists lament that John Kerry won all three debates by skilled debating � and yet gained little ground. bq. Even the wives and children are involved now. Kerry and his running mate John Edwards gratuitously broached the sexuality of Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter; his wife fired back that Kerry is not "a good man." And just when we got a brief respite, Teresa Heinz Kerry derided Laura Bush as never having a real job � before apologizing that, yes, a decade at work in public school counts as real employment. bq. Third-party ads, fueled by the money of multimillionaires, imply that Kerry was also a coward and traitor and that Bush was AWOL. CBS News anchor Dan Rather is caught promulgating clearly forged documents, an ABC memo warns against the chimera of objectivity, and Sinclair Broadcast Group agrees to air only portions of a clearly partisan film after Democrats howled. There is no need to mention the conspiracy theories of "Fahrenheit 911," Teresa Heinz Kerry's "scumbag" and "shove it," or Dick Cheney's use of the F-word. bq. Meanwhile, the back-and-forth acrimony prompts thousands of lawyers to contest an election in advance, hoping to win through the courts should they fail in the popular vote or Electoral College. Unfounded rumors circulate about a renewed draft, the end of Social Security and even of big-shot conservative politicians crowding ahead of the more needy for flu shots. Dr. Hanson then gets to the meat of the matter (after a few paragraphs): bq. Yet the true nature of our loud divisiveness is rarely remarked upon. In the last three decades, there has been a steady evolution from liberal to moderately conservative politics among a majority of the voters, whether gauged by the recent spate of Republican presidents or Bill Clinton's calculated shift to the center. Now the House, Senate, presidency and the majority of state governorships and legislatures are in Republican hands. A Bush win will ensure a conservative Supreme Court for a generation. bq. In contrast, the universities, the arts, the major influential media and Hollywood are predominately liberal � and furious. They bring an enormous amount of capital, talent, education and cultural influence into the political fray � but continue to lose real political power. The talented elite plays the same role to the rest of America as the Europeans do to the United States � venting and seething because the supposedly less sophisticated, but far more powerful, average Joes don't embrace their visions of utopia. Good stuff - he is always worth reading!