Joe Rum-and-Coke?

Posted by Jill in US Election 2008.

She has little knowledge of foreign policy or Supreme Court cases. She bounced between four relatively unknown colleges before finally getting a degree in communications. She enjoys shooting wolves from helicopters. Yes, Sarah Palin is JoAnn Six-pack, your average American who understands what it’s like to be you, to raise a your family and your seventeen-year-old daughter’s family, to be criticized and scrutinized by those out-of-touch elites because you’re an “outsider,” to be regarded with contempt because others just don’t understand that you’re a maverick, doggonit!   

This week there are two articles, in the New Republic  and Newsweek, that discuss Palin’s apparent disdain for the intellectual elite. Lacking actual credentials to hold the nation’s second highest office, she uses her folksy charm to sell her story of the average small town American girl who had big dreams and worked hard and one day made it to the top. It’s a touching story if you’re trying to be the next American Idol, but the being vice president is not a reward for having that can-do spirit and being so gosh darn cute. “Being like me” is not a qualification for higher office. In fact, it should be a disqualification. I get black out drunk on tequila and re-arrange my schedule around America’s Next Top Model - does this qualify me to be vice president? Oh, and I was once president of the College Democrats. That’s executive experience. 

Like the elections in 2000 and 2004, the 2008 election is turning into a battle between the educated liberal elite versus the regular family values conservative folk. The elites live in New England, hold advanced degrees from Ivy League institutions, drive foreign cars, read The New Yorker, and own summer homes. The good ‘ol country folk live in the South, maybe took a class at community college before deciding that school wasn’t their thing, married their high school sweethearts before they could legally drink, and consider a monster truck rally quality family entertainment. George W. Bush ran on the “I’m the President you want to have a beer with” platform, while Al Gore and John Kerry opted for the “I’m the President you want negotiating with Pakistan” angle. For two elections, the good ‘ol American boy won, even if he was actually the privileged son of a former President who was educated at Yale and benefited from the contacts of daddy and daddy’s friends. His supporters ignored his back story and went nuts for the image he portrayed as the tough cowboy who would protect America with guns a-blazin’ while the liberals sat down to tea with Osama bin Laden. George Bush understood them, and that was all they needed in a Commander-in-Chief.

When trying to explain the voter mentality, pundits point to this culture war, a separation of America into two groups with exact opposite world views. The average American is resentful of the entitlements of the intellectual elites, while the elites look down on the proud ignorance of the average rednecks. In these two distinctions, the middle is forgotten, those who balance between privileged and poor, the real “average American.” Joe Six-pack is not the representation of the majority of Americans. In reality, it’s more like Joe Rum and Coke - a little fancier than the six-pack, but not as upscale as a gin martini. Joe Rum and Coke has experiences on both sides of the culture war - he’s not rich or poor, a member of Mensa or a high school dropout, a cultural snob or white trash.  

Where I started and where I ended up is a journey between the two worlds of America. I spent the first 18 years of my life in a delightful town called Pasadena, Maryland, an island of red in a sea of blue. Situated between Baltimore and Annapolis, two of the more liberal areas of Maryland, Pasadena is an anomaly. Socially conservative, it sends some of the more conservative Republicans to the General Assembly each session, elected to protect Pasadena from the horrors of gay marriage. While financially the area falls right into the “middle class” category, many of the residents, especially the younger ones, prefer to see themselves as downtrodden, defeated by that liberal system and politicians who just don’t understand them and their simple ways. They fly confederate flags in their pick-ups, hang out in parking lots, and build meth labs in their basement. Hell, the death of Dale Earnhardt was considered a national tragedy akin to 9/11. That being said, they’re also some of the more interesting characters in my life. I would rather be at a my favorite Pasadena dive bar than a high-class DC club any day, because I feel no need to impress. I may not agree with their politics, but I enjoy their company.

In my other world, I went on a fancy over-priced private school that George Washington built with his bare hands. I now have a BA, a decent job, a savings account, and a really nice mattress. While i was in college, I mingled amongst those who had come from more privileged backgrounds. College was the first time I ever encountered someone who never had a part-time job in high school. I met people who got by on their last name and lacrosse skills rather than intelligence and hard work. While I balanced my classes and extracurriculars with my two jobs, I became frustrated by the laziness of some of my peers, whose alcohol problems were being funded by their parents. These people were also rarely liberal, if they were even political at all. I find it amazing how some of the least hardworking people were the first to rail against the welfare system and its “rewarding” of laziness. The “liberal elite” label is as inaccurate as the “simple-minded conservative.” Politics is not that black and white, and lumping people into two categories just breeds further resentment and tension between the classes.

I feel comfortable existing between my two worlds and I resent having to define myself by one or the other. I’m just as comfortable playing beer pong in the basement as I am attending a lecture. I can’t name a football player besides Tom Brady, but I also can’t name a golfer besides Tiger Woods. I use multi-syllable words and “motherfucker” in the same sentence. I am sickened by the extravagance of the spoiled brats on My Super Sweet 16 as much as I am annoyed by the redneck “git ‘er done” humor of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour. I’m a rum and coke, an average American who can shotgun a Natty Boh then discuss the effects of globalization on the third world. I don’t want my president to be like me - I want him to be the smartest motherfucker in the room, you betcha.

US Election 2008 |