"Elites" is a Right-Wing Slur Word

[MineralMan]

Why would any Democrat use it in describing another Democrat? It's a word used by Republicans to refer to Democrats in general. "The Liberal Elites," etc.

Its use by our Democratic candidates against each other demonstrates a poor understanding of the attack language so carefully selected by the far right to slam Democrats.

It's a mistake. Nobody should be making such mistakes this early in the Primary race.

Language matters. Use it wisely.

[comradebillyboy]

1. I grew up thinking 'elite' was a good thing even though I and my family

were far from elite.

[MineralMan]

2. Well, it can be a positive adjective. "elite athletes," for example.

Used as a noun to describe people, however, it has a negative connotation. That usage was pioneered by the Republicans to refer to Democrats some time ago. "Intellectual elites." "Academic elites," "Liberal elites." It is meant to mean "People not like us. People who think they're better than us." It's a populist trope.

Like many such words that have been part of the right-wing lexicon, it has become very successful as a slur, and is now used by the media and others without recognizing the origins of that usage.

It really wasn't a noun at all until that noun usage was created as a slur.

[PatSeg]

13. As Bill Maher once said,

"If I had to have open heart surgery, I'd want an 'elite' doctor to perform the procedure." I'd definitely want someone "better than me" to do things that I am not trained or prepared to do, like running the country for instance.

Republicans have made language a powerful weapon and they are really good at it. They often call people what they actually are, i.e. liberal, elite, and turn a positive into a negative. Then when Democrats fight back, they unwittingly repeat the slur, which tends to reinforce it in the public's mind.

What goes around, often comes around though, and now the word "conservative" has taken on a negative connotation, one that was probably more earned by republicans than orchestrated by Democratic political consultants.

[The Valley Below]

21. This is just one of the many problems that comes with an embrace of "populism."

Populist ideology turns the world on its head.

Instead of "ask not what my country can do for me, ask what I can do for my country," it is the opposite.

Under populism, those who innovate, invent, work-hard and create jobs and wealth are greedy and those who freeload are virtuous.

The most murderous dictatorships of the past 100 years have all sprung from populist roots.

Liberals, unlike populists, embrace reason and excellence. We need to encourage our youth to personal greatness and to encourage them to find innovative solutions to the world's challenges and to create the wealth that makes generous social programs for those who are less fortunate possible.

The last thing we ought to be doing is to fan resentments and rage towards those with talent, enterprise, and ambition. As liberals our mission should be to harness these virtues in service to creating a better society and better world.

That's our heritage as liberal Democrats.

[PatSeg]

29. Very well said

People have gotten sucked into false populism too many times over the years, sometimes disguised as communism or fascism, but in the end, it never serves the average person, just those in power. Better educated people probably wouldn't keep falling for the same old bombastic rhetoric. Anything that is designed to divide people, probably is not meant to serve those people.

[comradebillyboy]

60. Bravo

[czarjak]

67. Libertarians love the elite...

The more they have, means less for “those” other ones.

[Pacifist Patriot]

3. Excellent point

In a related vein, I enjoy seeing groups reclaim hateful language. I participate on another forum that has a small politics section - so you see people of all types joining in the fray there. It was actually created because pro-Trump people were disrupting the main forums which have nothing to do with politics at all.

The anti-Trump folks, a coalition of Democrats, Independents, and NeverTrumpers rather than the far left mob the pro-Trump folks like to believe they are, have started using "libtard" to identify themselves. The pro-Trump posters are clearly in a conundrum over what to do about losing their go-to insult. Some of the pro-Trump people there literally could not write a single post without using the word. Every single post.

Without seeming to coordinate, the anti-Trump posters refrain from profanity and name-calling while the pro-Trump crowd uses some of the most profane vocabulary I think I've run across online to date. The difference in tone is measured in miles not inches. So when the anti-Trump posters began referring to themselves as "libtards" without resorting to epithets for the pro-Trump posters it was quite amusing to watch. That tactic won't work all the time of course, but it sure has been fun to see them flounder about without their preferred verbal sparring weapon having any impact whatsoever. Forum judo?

[yonder]

61. +1. Judo means the "Gentle Way"

So you've hijacked their frame with an Osoto Gari here and a Tomoe Nage there.

Well done.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. It has also become a left-wing slur word, but with a slightly different nuance.

To conservatives, there is a class of "liberal elites" who live on the coasts, drink white wine, eat brie and avocado toast, have Ph.Ds in obscure subjects, drive Priuses, and look down their noses at the Real Americans in Real America - the good folks who drink beer, own guns and love Jesus. To the Enlightened Left, the elites are the Corporatist Democrats (whatever that means) who are insufficiently woke and who therefore occasionally deviate from the required progressive party line. These elites also look down their noses at the Real Americans, but in this case the Real Americans are the oppressed proletariat. Either way, "elite" is a stupid, false characterization. Let the GOP be stupid; Democrats can't afford to be doing this kind of shit.

[MineralMan]

5. Linguistically, it's an adjective, anyhow.

Its misuse as a noun is quite recent.

I object.

Perhaps we should call the Republicans the "Stupids." Same idea.

[PatSeg]

15. Hillary turned an adjective into a noun

when she called Trump's base "deplorables". Spell-check still doesn't recognize it!

[MineralMan]

17. Yes, she did. It has become a common thing to convert an

adjective to a noun, particularly when you want to use it in a negative way. Of course, "deplorable" was already a negative adjective, so it wasn't much of a change. But creating a new part of speech for a word is not too hard to do.

[PatSeg]

22. And that is how language changes

and always has. We often think the grammar rules are written in stone, but if you read things written 100 or 200 years ago, you see how the rules have adapted to the common usage.

That said, I think the turning a positive word into an insult might be more recent, though I'm sure it has happened to some degree at other times in history.

[MineralMan]

25. I'm not sure how much doing that happened until recently.

However, I haven't researched it, and probably won't.

You're right, though. Language isn't fixed, and changes all the time. Changing adjectives to nouns is easy, although there is typically a noun that already exists, like "elitist" for example. Deliberately changing the language for political reasons is an interesting phenomenon, I think. The novel "1984" is an excellent look at how changing language can change society, I think. Newspeak is here.

[PatSeg]

37. Oh yes, Newspeak

The future is now!

I had some really good English teachers and to this day, I get a physical reaction to people using adjectives as nouns or vice versa. Whenever I hear some college educated republican use Democrat as an adjective, I react more to the really atrocious grammar than the perceived slur that is intended. I want to tell them that it does not make Democrats look bad, it makes republicans look ignorant.

[MineralMan]

39. That usage was also part of Newt Gingrich's effort to

alter the language back in the 1990s. It might be his most successful one. "Democrat President," indeed! Since a perfectly good adjective already exists and is part of the name of our "Democratic Party," the replacement usage has been very effective over time.

[PatSeg]

47. I remember that

though I would say that it is probably more effective with people who already are republicans and take a dim view of Democrats. It only pisses the rest of us off. I suppose there are some middle people who can swing either way, people who only pay attention briefly before an election. I've never really understood such people, at least in the political climate of the last few decades. If I were an adult in the 1950s I suppose I might have voted for Eisenhower. I cannot imagine voting for a republican for much of anything now.

As an adult, I did vote for ONE republican many years ago. It was an anti-Richard Daley vote. I have no idea who the candidate was, but we hated Mayor Daley with a passion.

[McKim]

50. As Democrats We Need to Avoid Using Republican Vocabulary

As democrats, we need to avoid inadvertently using and spreading republican vocabulary. For example: “Iran Nuclear Deal” asserts that this is a haggling arrangement between the US and Iran and that the US and Iran are the only partners. It also echos Trump’s “Art of the Deal” and sets up the idea that Trump can get a better deal. The real name is The Iran Nuclear Agreement.
This presents the idea that it is an agreement between several countries.

Another example is “Obamacare” which is now in the popular lexicon. This makes it look like health care and its costs are all about Obama. What it is REALLY about is “Affordable Healthcare” which is a neutral term that presents government sponsored health care as a good thing.

These Republican words slip into common usage and each time they are uttered, they bash democrats and their achievements and their ideas. Be careful the words you chose can hurt your causes!

[BKDem]

57. I think that it was the work of Frank Luntz as part of Newt's Contract on America.

Newt isn't smart enough to come up with stuff like that on his own.

But Frank isn't exactly a giant brain either. Merrill Lynch hired Luntz to give them a list of "effective" words to use in their advertising, back when I worked at ML's agency. One ad critic called one of the resulting commercials "authentic frontier gibberish" -- a line stolen from Blazing Saddles, but entirely appropriate.

[MineralMan]

59. Could be, but it was Newt who encouraged their use.

[BKDem]

70. Yes. Luntz was hired by Newt. Newt was the front man.

The Contract on America was the source of such enduring gems as "death taxes."

[MineralMan]

71. Yup, and its influence has endured.

Looked at objectively, it was a brilliant move. Looked at from the opposite perspective, it was heinous. It sure as heck worked, though. More's the pity.

[Rorey]

40. Republicans: Stupids....I like it

Yet I don't like to paint a group of people with a broad brush. I think perhaps there should be two categories of Repubs: The "Stupids" and the "Evils". IMO they all fall into either one category or the other.

[TwilightZone]

51. Liberal as a noun has been around for at least 100 years.

"“Limousine liberals” is another phrase that has been attached to these comfortable nibblers at anarchy. But it seems to us too bourgeois. It may do as a subdivision of our higher priced Bolsheviki.
—New York Tribune, 5 May, 1919"


https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/liberal-meaning-origin-history

[jberryhill]

46. I never really got into the white wine

With the exception of a particular Loire Valley appellation, Sancerre, which is hard to find in the US at reasonable prices. We finally had to take another trip to Saumur, just to get a case of it shipped home, but since it keeps well at a somewhat reduced temperature relative to even other whites, it was a pain in the ass to get custom refrigeration for that case.

But, yeah, what you said. They think we are some kind of picky snobs or something.

[MineralMan]

8. That's not how it's typically used, though.

Besides, it's not a noun in the first place. It's an adjective.

[bucolic_frolic]

7. "Elites" was the original projection

I first heard it used by Limbaugh about 1994. We've been tagged as Liberal Elites ever since. I think it was originally an anti-environmental concept because we were seeking to protect the environment, which was detrimental to the profits of polluters.

[MineralMan]

9. It's all part of a deliberate use of certain words that was started

by Newt Gingrich in the early 1990s. That definition-changing initiative has been very successfully used by Republicans ever since.

[PatSeg]

19. And you know

I think it may go back even farther than that. I think republicans have been going after "liberals" ever since FDR. Even JFK felt the need to defend being called a "liberal".

If by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people-their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties-someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal", then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal.” John F. Kennedy, Profiles in Courage

[Rorey]

43. Yes!

That is me. Thanks for posting that.

[PatSeg]

48. The problem isn't who we are

or what we believe, it is often the messaging! JFK had that down.

[pwb]

10. Yeah, we use liberal a lot too.

Limbaugh started that shit and now we use it as a wing of our party ? Me I am a Democrat and nothing else.

[MineralMan]

11. It wasn't Limbaugh, although he popularized such usages.

Newt Gingrich originated a list of such words with new meanings that could be used as slurs. Rush made them common.

Liberal is a perfectly good word, as an adjective. Turning it into a pejorative noun was the trick.

It's a simple linguistic trick that has been hugely successful for the Right.

[TwilightZone]

14. Liberal as a slur dates back to Reagan.

"During his two terms in office, Reagan captured, solidified and came to personify America’s move to the political right. His greatest legacy is as leader of that swing in the American political spectrum. That shift made “liberal” a dirty word "

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/5158315/ns/us_news-life/t/reagan-contrary-view/

[Cosmocat]

12. Oh man, this has burned my ass since I was like 20

it is simply bullshit, Rush used to brainwash the pods in the early 90s with LIMOSENE LIBERALS!

Just their perverse way of expanding on the GOVERNMENT IS BAD bullshit and getting their pods to vote for dumbasses ...

[Happy Hoosier]

16. The use of the term "elite" is meant to instill resentment.

It's meant to instill resentment and anger that those "stuck up snobs" look down on "regular folks."

It's also part of the effort to undermine expertise. After all, those snobby "elite" scientists aren't gonna tell ME that I need to make changes to avoid ruining the planet!

Don't fall for it.

[MineralMan]

18. Populist politics at work.

[ehrnst]

20. Indeed. They deployed it against Obama regularly. (nt)

[cwydro]

23. I've even seen posters here lecturing others about what words we should or shouldn't use, lest we

sound “elite.”

[BeckyDem]

27. +1

[Apollo Zeus]

24. More of a populist term

not really left v right so much as it is top vs bottom, have vs have-not

[MineralMan]

28. Yes, absolutely it is.

[BeckyDem]

26. It is about class distinctions and its not a right wing slur.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

31. It has become a right-wing slur and a left-wing slur. The GOP and right-wing media

have used the term to distinguish between what they think of as liberal snobs and the real Americans who get their hands dirty, or something like that. The class distinction they try to make isn't wealthy vs. non-wealthy, it's educated liberals who think they're better than everybody else vs. salt-of-the-earth, noble, God-fearing conservatives. Used by the left, it's the noble proletariat vs. everybody else.

[MineralMan]

34. It looks like I wasn't direct enough in my OP in condemning its use

by Democrats.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

35. Maybe. I thought it was pretty clear, but

people see what they want to see.

[MineralMan]

36. Sometimes I wonder whether people read

the entire post. I suppose not in every case.

[TwilightZone]

49. It's been a right-wing slur since Reagan.

Further popularized by Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh.

[BeckyDem]

77. Nonsense.

It has always described a demographic class.

In political and sociological theory, the elite (French élite, from Latin eligere, to select or to sort out) are a small group of powerful people who hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege, political power, or skill in a society. Defined by the Cambridge Dictionary, the "elite" are "those people or organizations that are considered the best or most powerful compared to others of a similar type."[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite

[Bradshaw3]

30. How about far left? It's used as a slur on here often

I haven't seen a post condemning that. That slur shows a poor understanding of politics and of the attack language repubs use. If language matters, why has that not been condemned?

[MineralMan]

32. If you'll think about it, you'll see that I am doing just that here.

I'm referring to the word's use by a Democratic candidate to attack another Democratic candidate. It's a reference to other threads on this particular forum.

[Bradshaw3]

38. A condescending non-answer

Thanks but I did think about it. Now try answering the question. Have you ever, ever made the same point about using left wing or radical as a slur (almost always by Biden supporters) on here? It's been done many, many times and I've never seen you criticize it. If you can link to such a post that would be helpful in making your point (hopefully without the condescening, unsolicited advice for me to think about it).

[MineralMan]

41. Neither of those two things involves changing a part of speech to another.

for political purposes. "left wing" and "radical" are both legitimate adjectives already. "Radical" is also used as a noun, of course, and incorrectly.

I rarely see those terms used here to describe other Democrats, frankly. I don't use them.

I'm afraid I misunderstood your post, or I would have said what I have just said in reply to it. My apologies.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

33. See #4.

[Bradshaw3]

42. So much wrong with that post

Full of generalizations and ad hominem attacks. Doesn't answer the point I made in any way, and was in no way enlightening.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

52. So, kindly enlighten me.

[Bradshaw3]

78. Ad hominem attacks aren't enlightening

In order to enlighten try facts and some informed analysis instead of attacks like:
"To the Enlightened Left, the elites are the Corporatist Democrats (whatever that means) who are insufficiently woke and who therefore occasionally deviate from the required progressive party line. These elites also look down their noses at the Real Americans, but in this case the Real Americans are the oppressed proletariat."

Again, that is nothing but ad hominem attacks on supposedly homogeneous groups of people you deride with sarcasm. You follow that up by telling Democrats they can't afford to do the very thing you did in that post.

[JoeOtterbein]

44. Correct now and....

ABC News

Biden attacks Warren's approach to health care as 'elitism'
The former vice president is opening a new line of attacks.
By
John Verhovek, Cheyenne Haslett, Molly Nagle and Sasha Pezenik
November 6, 2019, 6:29 PM

Former Vice President Joe Biden is escalating attacks on Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, decrying her "elitism" and her "my way or the highway" approach to politics amid a heated debate over health care.

"It's representative of an elitism that working- and middle-class people do not share: 'We know best; you know nothing.' 'If you were only as smart as I am, you would agree with me,'" Biden wrote in a post on Medium Tuesday evening. He was responding to comments Warren made in Iowa last week that the former vice president is "running in the wrong presidential primary" and "repeating Republican talking points."

snip

...then!

[LiberalLovinLug]

66. Thank You!

Those who live in glass houses......


Here are the dictionary definitions, both noun and adjective;

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/elite

noun
1 (often used with a plural verb) the choice or best of anything considered collectively, as of a group or class of persons.
2 (used with a plural verb) persons of the highest class: Only the elite were there.
3 a group of persons exercising the major share of authority or influence within a larger group: the power elite of a major political party.
4 a type, approximately 10-point in printing-type size, widely used in typewriters and having 12 characters to the inch.Compare pica1.

adjective
1 representing the most choice or select; best: an elite group of authors.


One problem is even the dictionary has shades to the meaning, and that its both a noun and adjective.

If you interpret it a#1 of either, you could be a Republican or Democrat or not of any party, and still appreciate good cheese and wine. Or good beer and chips for that matter.

if its #2, its used more by the left to describe the most wealthiest classes. The right mocks this interpretation, while at the same time yearning and working to get there. I don't know why that is not used against them as "conservative elites". Don't they have the most billionaires like the Kochs?

If its #3, it could be a description of any political party, or company, or church, or any organization. There is always a top "elite" circle who hold privileged positions. ....cough....

Then there's #5, the Republican's alteration to mean not so much about quality. Not even so much about wealth. Its about arrogance in thinking you are always right. And more than that, you look down on those who disagree with contempt. (more projection) And IMO, at the risk of sounding like an elite liberal, its because we ARE usually right, history proves it, and they hate us for that. So because they can't change the actual facts that prove liberals correct, they re-imagine the messengers as that annoying kid in everyone's class growing up that always shoots their hand up first, the teacher's pet. That even IF they are right, their arrogance, (or projected arrogance) cancels out any truth in their answers.

Biden is using it in a variation of that. He knows that Medicare for All is actually cheaper, and more comprehensive than any private insurance controlled system, and doesn't have an answer to that, so instead deflects it by criticizing the messenger as "my way or the highway" and "elite".

[The Mouth]

72. 'We know best; you know nothing.'

That is exactly how most of my conservative friends heard Hillary. "We're going to take some things away from you for your own good" (which she did say, but said in a completely different context); gun control, limitations on what kind of cars and power equipment you can use, we know better than you how to manage your land, what your children should learn in school...

All of the above are examples of why conservatives think of Democrats as supporting 'the elite'. Sure, we are using actual (gasp) SCIENCE, but we don't often do enough work explaining the things we do when in power. Obama's EPA made a *LOT* of enemies, no matter how solid the data behind items like wetland protections and the Waters of the U.S. act, etc.

Messaging matters, and both parties can seem arrogant when fully in power. We have to do better next time.

[melman]

74. Funny you should mention that

I was just looking at very long thread from November on that very thing. 100+ posts and not a single one from the OP.

[KPN]

45. There's a lot of that going around this primary season.

“Elites” is but one example of many.

[LakeArenal]

53. To me MAGATS think they are the superior ones.

So it’s still projection to me.

They are the one who don’t like America and should leave it.

[TwilightZone]

54. We love stereotypes and lumping people together as much as anyone.

It's basically a shortcut. It's easier to label someone an elitist or claim they're part of the establishment or the ever-popular "centrist" than to provide real reasons or examples of why one finds a candidate objectionable. Or why it's even a problem in the first place.

[PatrickforO]

55. Indeed. As Ruth Bader Ginsburg has often said, "Words matter."

It is so ironic to me that we are presented as 'elite' while billionaire parasites like the Koch brothers, the Mercers, Sheldon Adelson and others aren't. I don't know why the media doesn't go right back at whoever refers to 'liberal elites' with massive diatribes on wealth inequality.

You want the party of the REAL elites? Try the party of Trump (formerly the Republican party, aka the GOP). They are the party of the elites. And they passed a giant, utterly irresponsible tax cut for these parasites to prove it.

[JustAnotherGen]

56. I was listening to Joe Madison

This morning. Right before Kweisi MFume's interview - a gentleman from South Bend called in to discuss Mayor Pete. He (an African American man in South Bend) used the word to describe Mayor Pete's policies in South Bend towards black Americans.

I think we need to be careful at this time - UNTIL our candidate is selected.

The Right Wing will smear our eventual candidate no matter what. It's better to be prepared for naysayers by overcoming those challenges now, but also making sure we the Demcoratic Party Constituents are NOT giving the Right Wing Media any opening to pile on our candidate.

[iluvtennis]

58. Per the Merriam Webster Dictionary of "elites" it's the rethugs that are elitists

I'm from a working class family who worked and struggled for everything - including education.

It's trump and most of the rethugs who are elitists as they had everything in life handed to them on a silver platter.

[aikoaiko]

62. Language does matter and the word is not necessarily a slur.

[Harker]

63. Remember Chimp W. Bush?

https://m.

[kimbutgar]

64. To me elites are those who are country club members, fly in private jets have 2nd and 3rd

Homes or vacation in private islands. These are mostly repukes so how are we plain folks the elite?

[SKKY]

65. They doth protest too much...

[LiberalLovinLug]

69. I don't know how they get away with accusing us as elites

Its like they imagine the Clinton's or Obama's in the scene above, even though their actual leader not only openly lavishes himself and family with decadence, but relishes in it. I am coninually amazed how the Republicans are able to not just twist the meaning of words but whom they apply to as well

[Sloumeau]

68. Elite was a positive word until Conservatives decided to make it a slur.

Because of this, the term "elite" is rarely used as a positive adjective anymore. Conservatives love to tar and feather words, like the word "liberal" and the terms "mass media" and "mainstream media". Watch a Trump Rally (if you can stomach it) and see how many times he tries to get people to hate people's names, the places people word (like CNN or MSNBC), Democrats, Liberals, Black People, Women, Brown People, The Chinese, Iran, or whomever. They are the party of hate.

[Odoreida]

73. How about "ruling class"?

Is that a right wing swear word too>

[MineralMan]

75. Not that I'm aware of.

That's what the right wing hopes to be.

[Thomas Hurt]

76. Fascist Anti-intellectualism and the Cult of Individualism

Traditionalism implies the rejection of modernism. Both Fascists and Nazis worshiped technology, while traditionalist thinkers usually reject it as a negation of traditional spiritual values. However, even though Nazism was proud of its industrial achievements, its praise of modernism was only the surface of an ideology based upon Blood and Earth (Blut and Boden). The rejection of the modern world was disguised as a rebuttal of the capitalistic way of life, but it mainly concerned the rejection of the Spirit of 1789 (and of 1776, of course). The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.

Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action's sake. Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. Distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur-Fascism, from Goering's alleged statement ("When I hear talk of culture I reach for my gun) to the frequent use of such expressions as "degenerate intellectuals," "eggheads," "effete snobs," "universities are a nest of reds." The official Fascist intellectuals were mainly engaged in attacking modern culture and the liberal intelligentsia for having betrayed traditional values.

Umberto Eco's Essay on Ur-Fascism 1995

[Gothmog]

79. Language does matter