Pelican Parts Forums - The Great Divide

The Great Divide

Friday, October 29, 2004

By John Gibson

To save your sanity — or, if you already feel sane, to preserve your sanity — you must read Victor Davis Hanson.

Dr. Hanson, a California State University history professor, wrote an op-ed piece for the San Francisco Chronicle on Wednesday about how the elite class of Americans — the media types, the movie stars, the singers — are shocked that the knuckle draggers out in the real world won't listen to them.

Hanson writes about how the divide between ordinary Americans — whose work tends not to come with royalty checks and whose accountant might be H&R Block — and the elite is growing wider and wider because the self-appointed "smart people" are fuming that they are being ignored and most everybody else is in fact ignoring them.

Hanson — a famous military historian — writes:

" Elites from college professors and George Soros to Bruce Springsteen and Garrison Keillor believe that their underappreciated political insight is a natural byproduct of their own proven artistic genius, education, talent or capital."

That last part — capital — that's about the money. George Soros — the billionaire who made his pile guessing correctly on the ups and downs of national currencies — has contributed $25 million to 527 groups with the express purpose of firing George W. Bush. It's all he cares about these days. He says he'll go to a monastery if Bush is re-elected.

Hanson continues:

"For all Sean Penn's rants, Rather's sermons, Michael Moore's mythodramas and Jon Stewart's postmodern snickers, America, even in times of a controversial war and rocky economy, is still not impressed."

Hanson may be on to something.

He lives on a 100-acre farm outside Fresno, California — he grew up there. He teaches in a university in Fresno. He's not in New York. He's not in Los Angeles. He doesn't care what parties he gets invited to, or doesn't. Bill Maher doesn't impress him.

If he's right, expect big trouble from our class of famous people. The people who buy tickets to their movies don't actually care what they think. In fact, they think they don't think.

That's My Word.