It's an ironic dog whistle word coming from an administration that includes 14 or 15 billionaires, and with a president and vice president who both attended Ivy League universities.
When less than desirable, uneducated, illiterate, unemployed, blue state tit-sucking, fake-bible thumping, machine gun toting, two toothed and four-toed plebiscites became the ruling cult.
a long time ago, according to this classic study published in 1963. It's part of the US mythos that ordinary self-reliant people are somehow more capable than useless eggheads:
When they stopped sending their kids to public schools, advocated to privatization of healthcare, were complicit in the atomization of the body politic manifesting their way of life, which led to the death of the American Dream, and a culture of grievance in […]
Honestly? I think when tertiary education became essential for ascendancy to the middle class or higher, and for participation in civil society. Inequality of opportunity, envy, and ignorance are a potent combination.
When did the "elites" become so far removed from the working/under class, convincing ourselves we were egalitarian while erecting countless soft barriers and controlling the discourse?
The abilities to navigate modern complexity, parse truth from bullshit, access knowledge & build relationships of influence are unequally distributed, including by social structures, cultures of belonging & identity, as much as 💰 and 🧠. That's exploitable.
Well said to all of this. It's easy to bristle at the label, but a little reflection shows that achieving professional success as we've defined it over the past few decades IS a privilege. Not acknowledging that, and helping others achieve it, will absolutely create exploitable resentment.
Thanks for engaging with this Sarah. We progressives make much of moral superiority, yet are condescending and paternalistic to those we claim to fight for. In government, we tweak unjust systems & impose technocratic "reforms" that provide a gentler version of the status quo. We don't fix... 1/2
...the underlying inequality, & we ensure we don't lose out. That hypocrisy is bitter. Yes, the oligarchs are lying to them, though they are validating lies that make them feel seen & generate visible action. It's sleight of hand, but it *feels* better. Then we blame then for our failures. 2/2
Back in the 1980’s the movement started with it’s hip to be square and then we elected our first frat boy “W” as President because you could have a beer with him we’re close to rock bottom with the idiocracy Rogan and bro culture who think being uneducated is a badge of honor and not a huge handicap
It helps them to justify their laziness. To quote one of my favorite deep thinkers Jack Handey, “Hard work may pay off in the long run, but laziness pays off right now.”
I'm not sure you need to be a 'successful' professional. You just need to be someone who knows that the genuinely elite who are screwing us over are genuinely screwing us over. The elites depend on the masses only knowing about celebs and football. Any other knowledge could destabilise them.
To obscure the fact the top 1 percent own 43 percent of all global financial assets. 2 corporations control 40 percent of the global seed market, 3 US-based asset managers —BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard— hold $20 trillion in assets, close to one-fifth of all investable assets in the world.
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Then turned that word into an epithet.
Strange how that works, no?
When they stopped sending their kids to public schools, advocated to privatization of healthcare, were complicit in the atomization of the body politic manifesting their way of life, which led to the death of the American Dream, and a culture of grievance in […]
It's a pretty classic divide-and-conquer tactic I think?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuppie
https://www.ft.com/content/3be49734-29cb-11e6-83e4-abc22d5d108c