The Protected and the Unprotected

Peggy Noonan gets the dynamic at work in the rise of Donald Trump:

But I keep thinking of how Donald Trump got to be the very likely Republican nominee. There are many answers and reasons, but my thoughts keep revolving around the idea of protection. It is a theme that has been something of a preoccupation in this space over the years, but I think I am seeing it now grow into an overall political dynamic throughout the West.

There are the protected and the unprotected. The protected make public policy. The unprotected live in it. The unprotected are starting to push back, powerfully.

The protected are the accomplished, the secure, the successful—those who have power or access to it. They are protected from much of the roughness of the world. More to the point, they are protected from the world they have created. Again, they make public policy and have for some time.

I want to call them the elite to load the rhetorical dice, but let’s stick with the protected.

They are figures in government, politics and media. They live in nice neighborhoods, safe ones. Their families function, their kids go to good schools, they’ve got some money. All of these things tend to isolate them, or provide buffers. Some of them—in Washington it is important officials in the executive branch or on the Hill; in Brussels, significant figures in the European Union—literally have their own security details.

Because they are protected they feel they can do pretty much anything, impose any reality. They’re insulated from many of the effects of their own decisions.

Read the whole thing. Along the way she invokes - - possibly inadvertently - - a Warren Zevon song title, bonus points for identifying it.

If He'd Been a Convenience Store Clerk or a Pizza Delivery Driver...

...he'd be looking for a new job.

The elites always look out after their own.

George Lucas: You Won't Let Me Build A Movie Studio On My Own Land?

Well, fine then. I'll build low-income housing on it, instead.

Which in Marin County, California, described in the article as one of the wealthiest, whitest communities in the U.S. (bolding mine).

Can't have that, oh, no. Crime, picaninnies and chicken bones everywhere, and they all talk like Jar Jar Binks!

I'm More Elitist Than I Realize

A quiz about how closely you fit into the American mainstream.

How Thick Is Your Bubble? Guest Score » 7 out of 20 (35% ) Result On a scale from 0 to 20 points, where 20 signifies full engagement with mainstream American culture and 0 signifies deep cultural isolation within the new upper class bubble, you scored between 5 and 8. In other words, you can see through your bubble, but you need to get out more. Quiz School Take this quiz & get your score

How Thick Is Your Bubble? » Quizzes

via Michael Graham.

NY Times: Yer a Bunch of Juju-Bead Shakers

All because you don't believe in your pragmatic, scientific, data-based betters.

The divide between the empiricists and the believers is also the fault line between the highly educated, technologically adept super-elite and the squeezed and scared middle class. But those hoi polloi voters, who, in 2012, as they were in 2008, seem to be drawn to politicians with big ideas and strong beliefs, may also be responding to something even bigger than this cognitive divide.

Same old elitist crap.

Leftist Prick Says What?

The myth of the self-made man that emerged in the 19th century wasn't entirely a myth. There were people who came to America and did very well for themselves. They had to do things like kill Native Americans and destroy the land in the process, but they made better lives for their families.

Taken from a Salon interview titled "Why Won't America Embrace the Left?" Examples such as the one above might have something to do with it.

h/t Weasel Zippers.

Just Get Rid of the Gas-Guzzler, Ya Dumb Redneck

President Obama finally answers a question about high gasoline prices.

The party of the working class.

h/t Alan at Snarkybytes.

update: Looks like the Associated Press is trying to make that embarrassing passage disappear.