Remember this famous quote?
“I’d rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.” -William F. Buckley, Jr.
William F. Buckley was the son of an oil baron. He was educated in Paris and London and graduated from Yale where he was a member of the elite Skull & Bones secret society. He spoke several languages. He loved classical music and sailing, horseback riding, and skiing. He had almost nothing in common with the average American schlub you’d find in the first 400 names listed in the phone book. Buckley wouldn’t let those people use his plates, let alone consent to be governed by them. But this is the act that people like Buckley put on to appeal to the lower classes who they then use to keep their own taxes low. It is why the Republicans like to nominate morons like Dan Quayle and George W. Bush. They may be privileged sons but they’re as doltish and intellectually incurious as any guy working on his transmission in the front-yard.
It wasn’t until John McCain selected Sarah Palin as his running mate that we saw a genuine self-professed redneck on the Republican ticket. Poppy may have eaten pork rinds and Quayle may have thought they speak Latin in Latin America, but for ignorant you can’t touch Palin.
Speaking at the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina, Palin claimed that some in the media have tried to portray members of the Tea Party movement as “violent or racist or rednecks.”
“And I don’t really have a problem with the redneck part of it, to tell you the truth. I don’t,” the former vice presidential candidate told the crowd. “That’s fine with me.”
Buckley died in February 2008. It was six months too early to see his dream come true.
I see that Palin is trying to take the racist connotation out of the word ‘redneck,’ but she might want to consider that the Confederate Flag is still the unofficial symbol of self-professed rednecks. Denuding the term of offensive and threatening meanings is easier said than done.