The strangest thing about the “whither Republicanism” crowd is that they’re nowhere nearly as intellectual nor as internationally sophisticated as they would have you believe. The difference between a monolingual New York journalist such as David Brooks and three-quarters of the American expatriate community is actually much greater than the difference between David Brooks and the great quantity of grassroots Republicans throughout the country that he and his tiny band of like-minded cohorts so often affect to despise. Neither the genuine intellectuals nor the genuine upper class of the Old World have much use for the upper middle class American wannabees of the media; they tend to regard them as the same sort of hicks as, ironically enough, George Bush. Most of them don’t know who Sarah Palin is and those who do couldn’t care less about care about her… and the average liberal American would probably have an absolute stroke if they heard the way that the Europeans they so admire talk about American’s new African president.
The truth is that most Europeans don’t regard New Yorkers as being any more sophisticated than Nebraskans, in fact, many of them aren’t really all that clear on the difference between New York City and Nebraska. (Minneapolis… is that closer to Los Angeles or San Francisco?) And, given the fact that the average fat, obnoxious, American tourist wearing shorts and white tennis shoes while making their once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage to Florence is much more likely to hail from New York than from Nebraska, it tends to be Nebraskans who are tainted by their national association with New Yorkers.
And as Ed Anger points out, it makes no sense to pay any mind to the nonsensical burblings of the GOP’s moderate wing:
Every since their big get-together last week, everybody’s fighting about “the future of conservatives.” Namby pamby Beltway big shots tell us to dump Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber, and get more classy and “intellectual” like them!
Heck, some of these “conservatives” even voted for Teleprompter Jesus himself!
Don’t listen to these stuck up sons of Benedict Arnold. Has Ross Douthat or David Brooks ever won a chili cook-off or fired a few rounds off a .45? David Frum probably can’t even change a tire without his Filipino nanny helping out.
Yes, yes, that last bit did indeed make me laugh.