Who Raised You?: Bully politics and the new GOP

I used to call my mother a grammar dictator. She is an Iowa native; a place where the predominant way of speaking (the general American broadcast accent) works nicely behind the TV news desk. “Enunciate!” she would insist over dinner. “I taught you to speak better than that. People will wonder who raised you.”

Accents have been important in this country and others for ages. During the early 20th century, we even invented an accent to help us achieve class distinction — the Transatlantic Accent. (Think Katharine Hepburn or Cary Grant.) The Transatlantic Accent incorporated elements of the Queen’s English, the ‘posh’ British manner of speaking, to elevate the social status of the conversationalist. This was a person with an air of sophistication; probably summered somewhere with other elites, had an invitation only membership to Piping Rock. It was commonly taught to actors, and was part of the curriculum at elite boarding schools.

Could the dry humor of beloved bougie television character Frasier Crane been so impactful without it? In the show, Frasier’s father speaks in a more identifiably blue collar American accent. This distinction is important — Frasier’s father was a retired police officer, his late mother was a retired psychiatrist. Likely, a young Frasier had been provided an elite education to improve his opportunities for upward mobility; the picture of the American dream. May my children have better than I had myself.

An interesting outcome of the American dream of upward mobility is our cultural compulsion to take on affects and appearance of a higher social status or class than we actually inhabit. Giant designer logos, luxury vehicles we finance, stretching our budget to put our children in the “right” public school — or even Xavier or Regina, if we can shake it. For as long as we have existed as a nation, there also has been an equal and opposite effort by the existing old money crowd to resist infiltration.

John D. Rockefeller and his wife Abby thwarted their outsider status through access to power, philanthropy, and leveraging Standard Oil profits to penetrate high society. Cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post left her Midwestern Ohio roots to attend George Washington University, developed relationships with political elites, and hosted parties at her three estates — including Mar A Lago, which she built from the ground up as a private residence, later sold to Donald Trump by the Post Foundation. A stroll through her DC residence, now a museum with its extravagant artwork and priceless artifacts, might grant some insight into the desire of a younger Trump — a debt-leveraged spectacle by trade — to buy his way into the elite echelons that had excluded him for decades. This, of course, was not the means by which the “outer-borough new money” real estate nepo baby with an unshakable Queens accent and an abrasive, off-putting demeanor was able to infiltrate. It would take another 31 years of launching and failing, acquiring and debt leveraging, polarizing behavior, generational fraud, the explosion of reality competition TV, and a political race that he transformed into a grotesque reality-show villain popularity contest — to grant him the validation he had for so long only been able to receive from himself.

Rather than elite boarding schools that might have imparted a different kind of refinement, Trump’s domineering, abusive, exploitative father sent him to military school where he became a more accomplished bully. His brother Fred became a debilitating alcoholic, a condition from which he never recovered.

At some point in his crusade for “success,” it seems that Trump decided that *everyone* who was not on board with his master plan was an “elite.” Journalists, politicians, the entire District of Columbia, elite … elite … elite. Like the developed Spanish lisp, many people have adopted the same language as their king — and this narrative has become more widely accepted. “Elite” is now a term now so broad it has become meaningless other than to describe those who oppose nightmarish policy that would starve older adults, deny medical care to poor children, and generally call out the maladroit nature of an administration running comms by group chat.

More and more, there seems to be a shift toward this type of bully governance by the GOP. I can think of no better example than Sen. Joni Ernst’s recent “ We’re all going to die” comment, and her sarcastic selfie video response to those who correctly identified her remarks about cuts to food assistance as myopic and out of touch with a constituency residing in a state with the worst economy in the country. Somewhere along the line, fitting in with the bully culture has become more important than upholding the work of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Who defines what we aspire to now? Much as we turned away from the Transatlantic Accent with Hollywood’s shift in the 50s to promote realism (John Wayne, James Dean) is there also a shift away from WASPy traditional elitism? If TikTok trends are any indication, the quantity of content promoting the “old money” aesthetic on a budget either refutes that shift or demonstrates that we are pursuing the aesthetic of old money without actually having much money at all. In the end, Trump still is chasing the status held by people for whom he holds contempt. The middle and lower class MAGA crowd are seemingly likewise convinced that they are temporarily embarrassed billionaires.

American culture has also from inception been heavily influenced by (without offering much credit to) Black culture — including cowboys, country music, rock 'n' roll, language, invention, and much, much more. Harvard Professor Sunn M’Cheaux teaches the Gullah language, a Black American dialect many of whose words you already know, including tote, yam, and kumbaya.

I think about this a lot when I see MAGA hats on rappers. Hip hop music has been so influential, and the personas of rappers so compelling that it is a natural place to pursue branding opportunities. Just ask Adidas.

Ultimately, it’s up to each of us to determine what values we want to offer the next generation. Collectively, we have a long road ahead to create the nation we were promised. I might not get there with you. As for me and my house, we will work for the greater good of humanity. To that end, in order to provide the best possible outcomes for my own child, I would like to offer this narrative as an open letter to hip hop mogul Lil Jon.

Dear Mr. Jon,

I would like to request your services as an elocution coach for a 10 year old girl. I have seen and been impressed by your presentation to the Oxford Guild as well as the Democratic National Convention; I would like my daughter to develop speech patterns and societal behavior that distinguish her as upwardly bound, firmly grounded in her cultural values, and refined in her mannerisms. I hope like you, her voice embodies the importance of philanthropy and political advocacy. God forbid she uses the salad fork on dessert — who will they think raised her?! Thank you for your consideration.

Sofia DeMartino is a Gazette editorial fellow. sofia.demartino@thegazette.com