After all the MSM hype about the Mississippi Senate run-off, liberals are faced with the troublesome task this morning of explaining away Cindy Hyde-Smith's comfortable victory.
Eddie Glaude Jr. found a nasty way of doing so. Appearing on today's Morning Joe, the Princeton prof managed to slur both Hyde-Smith—as the equivalent of a slave owner—and the poor of Mississippi, who in his view are too unenlightened to vote the way he thinks they should.
Glaude described Hyde-Smith as "the last breath of the inheritors of the plantation class." He then condescendingly accused poor Mississippians of being too benighted to realize what was good for them:
"Given the demographics of the state, if poor people, poor people in Mississippi, acted in their interests, they are the majority. They are the majority . . . If poor people are acting in their interest, then they can change."
In a recent National Review article, the inimitable Kevin Williamson wrecked that "What's the Matter with Kansas?" line that liberals like Glaude love. Excerpts [emphasis added]:
Implied in the assertion that poor whites do not understand their own interests is the assumption that affluent white progressives such as Alex Kotlowitz, a journalist and filmmaker who writes for the New York Times like his father before him, or Thomas Frank of Mission Hills — Kansas, yes, and 97 percent white and the third-wealthiest municipality in the United States — do. There is some reason to be skeptical of that proposition.
. . .
The thing is, people get to decide for themselves what their interests are . . . Senator Bernie Sanders is perplexed and offended by the wide choice of deodorants spread before American consumers. Why so many? Because that is the way people prefer it. Who do you really think you are to tell them they are wrong? That they simply don’t understand their own interests?
Mrs. Clinton is not president today because she did not understand the interests of people in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. She did not understand those interests because she was too lazy to ask. But rejection on those grounds is unsettling for progressives to contemplate. Better to tell themselves bedtime stories about white supremacy or misogyny or the Koch brothers or willful ignorance by the Jesus-besotted plebs out there in the sticks.
. . .
It may be that these poor lost souls would rather work than sign up for welfare benefits. It may be that they do not want your money — or your advice. It may be that they do not want anything from you at all. You might ask about that.
Note: We've seen a lot of Professor Glaude, given his regular appearances on Morning Joe. And we find something affable about the Chair of African-American Studies at Princeton. But his views are virtually indistinguishable from those of every other liberal who wanders onto the set. Sad!
