Heepism vs. Elitism

At the nation's founding, Americans believed that government exists to protect people in the exercise of their pre-existing "natural" rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But time passed, bringing us FDR and Oprah and other facets of modernity. Now Americans believe that government exists to create new rights for them, and to solve their problems, and that it can do so only if politicians empathize with voters' conditions and "feelings," and that perhaps politicians cannot do so if they do not live lives of conspicuous normality.

Actually, the politics of Uriah Heepism—histrionic humility—and flamboyant empathy had infected politics by 1840. The country was in its worst depression to date and the Democratic Party, which had held the presidency for 12 years, was in bad odor. When the Whig Party nominated William Henry Harrison, a hostile newspaper said that all Democrats would need to do was "give him a barrel of hard cider" and a pension and he would be content to "sit the remainder of his days in his log cabin." Whigs saw opportunity in the insult, saying that the remedy for hard times was hard cider. Harrison had lived in a log cabin only briefly, and by the time he ran for president the house on his Ohio estate was grand enough that his campaign had to tone it down for public viewings. Never mind. Log cabins and cider jugs became symbols that propelled Harrison to the White House.

A story, perhaps apocryphal but certainly plausible, is that a child once began a school essay with this sentence: "Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin he built himself." Although Lincoln did not build it, being born in such a very 'umble dwelling was for him an excellent career move.

Charges of "elitism" are hardy perennials, but surely Americans can accept two axioms. The first is: The central principle of republican government is representation, under which the people do not decide issues, they decide who shall decide. The second is: Elections decide not whether elites shall rule but which elites shall rule.

Robert Alphonso Taft (1889–1953), the son of President William Howard Taft, became known as "Mr. Republican" during his 14 years as a U.S. senator from Ohio. He was a conservative representing a state whose electorate included many farmers and blue-collar industrial workers, and opponents charged that he was out of touch with such ordinary people. In 1947 a reporter asked Mrs. Taft, "Do you think of your husband as a common man?" Aghast, she replied:

"Oh, no, no! The senator is very uncommon. He was first in his class at Yale and first in his class at the Harvard Law School. We wouldn't permit Ohio to be represented in the Senate by just a common man."

In 1950, Taft was re-elected in a landslide.

© 2008