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There They Go Again...

A few days ago Gerard Alexander had a fascinating article in the Washington Post that asked Why Are Liberals So Condescending?

On the same day Real Clear Politics linked an article by Jacob Weisberg, editor of SLATE, who involuntarily volunteered to be a case study of what Alexander had in mind with an article whose advice was to Blame the Childish, Ignorant American Public. The content of Weisberg?s article, however, was less nuanced and balanced than its title. Its message was that ?the biggest culprit in our current predicament? is ?the childishness, ignorance, and growing incoherence of the public at large.?

Now comes the New Yorker, that arbiter of taste and right (i.e., left)-thinking that all the cognoscenti read when they?re not reading the New York Times or listening to NPR, with an article by James Surowiecki, the magazine?s financial writer, on what it regards as The Populism Problem. To Surowiecki, the ?problem? is the advice voters are giving to politicians these days:

This advice may be contradictory, but then so are the economic opinions of the many angry voters who are animating what?s being called the new populism. Whereas the economic populism of the eighteen-nineties and the right-wing cultural populism of recent years represented reasonably coherent ideologies, this new populism has stitched together incompatible concerns and goals into one ?I?m mad as hell? quilt. The people may have spoken. It?s just not clear that they?re making any sense.

No doubt Surowiecki is right. It?s not clear ... to him.

Full post as published by Discriminations on February 08, 2010 (boomark / email).