THE COOLNESS FACTOR IN AMERICAN POLITICS

VDH - 5/2012:

No one has suggested that Hollywood lower movie-ticket prices by asking Johnny Depp or Jennifer Lopez to walk away with $10 or $20 million less a year. Steve Jobs found ways to dodge taxes comparable to those deployed by any Wall Street fatcat, but he was iPad cool, and so his iPhone billions were exempt from the Occupy nonsense. Cool capitalists are immune from the neo-Marxist critique of capitalism — a racket that $40 billion–rich Warren Buffett learned late in life, but well enough, with the “Buffett Rule.” 

We simply don’t mind that Google and Amazon rake in billions, but we despise Exxon and Archer Daniels Midland for doing the same. It is not that we need social networking and Internet searches more than food and fuel, but rather that we have the impression that cool zillionaires in flipflops are good while uncool ones in wingtips are quite bad. 

... What, then, exactly, is this cool that allows you to earn whatever you like without censure, and then to spend it as you please without fear of public scorn? 

...  In general, to win exemption from the left-wing critique of America, the affluent must construct cool identities as far distant as possible from the white Christian heterosexual male, who is most culpable for creating our present affluence from ill-gotten gains. The multimillionaire Elizabeth Warren and her husband make nearly $1 million a year. They live in a home beyond the reach of 99 percent of America. 

And she may well have plagiarized and been dishonest about her own heritage. No matter — Warren washed away both her privilege and her sins by reinventing herself as a “Cherokee” who fights Wall Street oppressors. 

...  Cool is now America’s holy grail that allows the elite and the rich not just to pursue and enjoy nice things, but to damn others who do the same.  

I WROTE ABOUT IT HERE - IN 2009:

SUNDAY, JULY 26, 2009 

THE "COOL" LEFT-WING - why it got that way (and what must be done about it!) 

Because their aim is to take over society, for decades, the Left has cultivated "coolness".
The Left has used every mass media tool and trick in the book to make youths associate left-wing policies with "coolness".
It's cool to be subversive, anti-establishment, pacifist, "green", anti-American, anti-Puritanical, anti-Founding Fathers, anti-nuclear - anti-"nuclear FAMILY", anti-religion, anti-"big business", anti-talk radio, anti-hunting, anti-NASCAR - and so on.
The Left's desire to be associated with young, attractive and popular ACTORS and MUSICIANS -- (not the sharpest folks or most educated folks in the world, GENERALLY!) -- is a clever marketing TRICK.
And the Left uses the converse, too - caricaturing people on the right as dumb oafs: SNL's depiction of Palin, the entertainment industry's and MSM's depiction of Dubya, and Reagan before that.
The point being to reinforce the idea that leftness is smartness/chicness/COOLNESS and rightness is dumbness/oafishness.
The truth is the left-wing ideas have NOT helped humanity ANYWHERE as well as right-wing ideas have: China had 40 years of Mao-ness and it was an awful impoverished era; it only took 2 decades of A LITTLE rightness (a little free market capitalism) for China to go from starving poverty to fat affluence; 300 MILLION people were lifted pout of poverty by "right-wing" policies. Comparing North and South Korea leads to the same conclusion. Ditto East/commie Europe (from 1945-1989) and Western Europe. And everywhere else you want to compare: freer more 'right-wing" societies offer their people better living standards, longer healthier lives - AND MORE LIBERTY - it's a win-win-win! ((No coincidence here: prosperity is a by-product of liberty!)
All the chic and cool tools and toys of the modern world are the products of right-wing policies: compare Soviet cars to Detroit's of the same era; commies cars sucked; Detroit's were cool --- (and as bad as Detroit's were, they were better than Moscow's!).
I think the way out of this is manifold:

UNTIL WE MAKE CONSERVATIVE COOL, WE WILL HAVE A HARD TIME WINNING THE YOUTH, AND WITHOUT THEM ELECTIONS ARE TOUGH TO WIN THESE DAYS.