Culture at least the culture we are proud of and don t sneer at is highly elitist. We admire the best, and only the best, according to some cultural and time dependent standard.

In Israel, the educated Jewish activists who criticize Israeli abuses against Palestinians, the peaceniks who believe that negotiation is better than violence and that even Arabs have rights, are called, with a knowing sneer, beautiful souls. The common man, rooted in the real world, supposedly knows better uncompromising toughness, the hard line, is the only way to get results.

Populist demagogues in politics and the mass media are doing everything they can to discredit the quality press as propaganda organs for left wing elites who sneer at the views of ordinary Americans. Santorum pretends to speak for these people that is, for a minority of Americans who are mostly white, provincial, highly religious, deeply conservative on cultural and social issues, and convinced that Obama and all Europeans are dangerous godless socialists.