The Fall of Intellectual Elitism
Before we go in, I would like to clarify that I do not support Donald Trump. I do not have any intention to echo his problematic rhetoric.
Rather, I believe it is crucial for us to realize that each person thinks differently, and we have failed to fully acknowledge this very simple fact by conveniently questioning (or “doubting”) the American electorates’ intellectual capacity. “The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt”, as Bertrand Russell, a brilliant British philosopher and mathematician, said it deliberately.
It turns out that we are the stupid ones.
What we might be currently observing in the United States is the downfall of “intellectual elitism”, fuelled by liberal media outlets, such as the New York Times, The Atlantic, Vox, and their palpable bias towards the Republican presidential candidate.
They seemed to have failed to do the very thing that they were supposed to do: look from both sides. It is time for us to truthfully admit that many of us, including myself, are part of the cohort propped up by the false sense of elitism and the notion of intellectual superiority. It is time for us to take a “reality pill” in order to properly assess our nature and where we are at. Thus, we are called the “urban elite”, armed with higher education, our sense of “openness” and our austere push for social justice issues. On the other hand, there is the rest of the population, those who do not, or cannot simply sympathize with the ideas of those so-called “urban elite”. They have different things on their mind.
Lots of people around me often say, “don’t judge me”. I hear this phrase so often, and that is right. It is simply none of my damn business. Yet, if you don’t like to be judged, then why do you judge the others? If you think you’re knowledgeable and righteous enough to judge others and call them sexists, racists or whatsoever for that matter, you might want to rethink. No one is necessarily smarter than anyone else in this case, and that includes you and me.
Often, we don’t even attempt to consider that the majority of Trump supporters are neither sexists nor racists. Rather, they are the “ordinaries”, or as Clinton colourfully suggested, the “deplorables”, the working class people who are afraid of being socioeconomically marginalized in the midst of globalization. Trump saw this opportunity and approached them with attractive promises. If you were one of the “ordinaries”, who would you rather choose? A socially-aware, righteous, first-ever female president, but someone who doesn’t seem like she is going to get you out of the rock bottom? OR, an immoral, problematic, questionable-at-best presidential candidate, but someone who has been yelling out loud for more than a year that we will make the country great again together and bring back the glory to the working class of America?
If you seriously argue that you would choose Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump even if you were in their shoes, that is exactly one of the symptoms of the false sense of intellectual elitism that I am talking about. You don’t vote for someone like Clinton when you can’t even afford diapers. You only care about your day-to-day living because you do not simply have enough resources to pay attention to the important matters. The working class people, the “ordinaries”, have chosen what’s best for them. That is hard to swallow, but what is true is true. If you refuse to admit the truth and continue to be in denial with the false sense of intellectual superiority, you might as well continue to live that way. Humans improve only if we learn from our mistakes.
Donald Trump, the president-elect of the United States, should thank the liberal media outlets for basically making his victory come true. They have called his supporters and everyone in the middle as “racists, bigots, sexists”, and the “deplorables”. The reason is simple, to intimidate them. But, their partisan articles and broadcasts have undoubtedly pushed many of those who are in the middle to vote for Trump. Could we just pause and consider that perhaps, Trump supporters have felt marginalized and alienated by the market economy, and did not see Clinton’s agenda as a solution to their well-being, and also their matter of “existence” to some extent, just as Clinton supporters have felt vulnerable and offended by what Trump has said. Calling Donald Trump a sexist and a racist is one thing. I have no doubt about that. He is not qualified. No one doubts that, and I personally believe that most of his supporters didn’t vote for him for his qualities, even though to support him is to support him as a whole.
But over-generalizing the qualities of his supporters is another matter.
The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Slate, Politico, and many other “elite” publications have ignored the voice of the “deplorables”. They have been naive, self-righteous, and failed to see things differently. And clearly, intimidating Trump supporters by labeling them as racists, bigots, sexists, has failed. That is a big part of why they have lost this election, and they should be held responsible for Trump’s victory. They should’ve expected the possible electoral backlash. The people, the “deplorables”, who also happen to make up half the country, made their decision.
The election result is highly relatable to what happened in Britain last June. No one saw Brexit coming, and even the Financial Times had failed to read the minds of the people and got knocked down, just like NYT, WP, and many other venerable American media outlets that completely misjudged the situation. They failed to realize that painting the Trump supporters as the untouchable losers again and again over a year could have resulted in the under-representation of them in national polls. Does that ring a bell? Just like the Labour Party of the United Kingdom is no longer able to click with the rural voters and the “ordinaries”, the Democratic Party has now become a group of elites unable to identify themselves with the economically marginalized.
Simply put, this is Brexit 2. Maybe, just maybe, the Democrats and their allies probably knew about this possibility, but they somehow chose to keep it low-key. It is more convenient that way, and maybe, they might have decided to go with a false sense of security and hope that “it won’t happen this time”.
It is not a surprise, and Clinton’s advisors should have seen this coming. British people chose to leave the EU, because they wanted to reclaim the glory that had belonged to them. American people chose Trump for the same reason.
Perhaps, calling everyone who doesn’t agree with your views a racist, xenophobic, sexist, misogynist, illiterate, and idiot doesn’t work too well. And if you continue to label them with those words, you will see Trump as the president until 2024, because I can guarantee that delegitimizing the rural electorate by inferring stupidity and their intellectual capacity won’t give the Democrats a win in 2020.
The election was another HUGE SLAP in the face of those who control the media, who conduct the polls, and who think that they practice the absolute justice. They may be right about the justice part since I do not see Donald Trump as someone who is qualified for the presidency, but still, it’s a huge slap.
What’s done is done. Donald Trump is the president-elect, and the president of the nation for next 4, or possibly 8 years, if the Democrats don’t get their shit together soon enough.
Not your president? That is your president whether you like it or not. On the bright side, it is not going to be the end of the world, and the Republican politicians are not as seemingly insane as the president-elect. But the important thing to remember is, the liberal media owes its readers a big-time mea culpa for its palpable, wrongheaded and misleading commentary on the US elections. The members of the cohort have failed to properly educate their subscribers and the electorate.
Try again next time, and please don’t mess it up. Stand on both sides. You are the media. That’s what you’re supposed to do.
