I know, Election 2004 is nearly a year past. But this morning, as I was waking up, my mind wandered as unsteered minds will do. A bumper sticker slogan from last year resurfaced in my awareness:
“John and Teresa Kerry…proof that money does NOT buy class!”
People who deride bumper stickers as shallow don’t understand the layers of meaning that can hide in just a few words. There’s a lot to this one, that’s for sure. What is this bumper sticker trying to say, really? To start with, the sticker distinguishes between the possession of wealth and belonging to a member of a class. Neither John Kerry nor Teresa Heinz Kerry started off life as a member of a super-rich family, but both gained wealth over the course of their lives. The anti-Kerry sticker here makes reference to that, but takes pains to assert that although the two have gained money in an American success story, they don’t belong to the right class. The social upper class of this country has many terms for these sorts of people: declasse, nouveau riche, vulgar money, and so on. Whoever designed this sticker sees Mr. and Mrs. Kerry as examples of what to them is the unfortunate phenomenon of the wrong sort of people getting rich and thinking that they have the right to associate with the right sort. The right sort are members of those few families who are located in the uppity Social Register. Their children are granted admission to the right boarding schools. Their families have maintained membership in the correct exclusive social clubs. These are the “upper crust,” the “old money,” the “bluebloods.”
This bumper sticker bleeds with old-school Republican elitism: John Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry are members of the nouveau riche, elbowing into the halls of power where they don’t belong. How dare they! Vote, instead, for the correct alternative, someone with class: George W. Bush. Bush is from old money. He’s from the Kennebunkport Bushes. His family connects with the Prescotts. Blueblood. Upper Crust. One of ours.
That’s the Republican Party for you.
