The Archetype of the Champagne Socialist

If the absolute perfect Champagne Socialist could describe herself with total candour, she would say this:

I am well-bred, educated, highly intelligent, more aware than most, kinder than most, more thoughtful than most, and generally an extremely impressive and admirable person. I am at the same social level as the elite, but I am not of the elite, because I choose to reject their corrupt ideas and fear-driven closed-mindedness. In this way, while I equal them in education and intelligence (if not in raw wealth), I best them in morals and courage. I know a better way to live. I know best. I always know best. I am the best person in my society. This is shown by my social class (which makes me equal to the elite), but also by my humane concern for the poor and downtrodden (which makes me superior to the elite).

This self-image is very high on vanity, but also very tenuous, built on sand. Thus it depends for its survival on a great amount of delusion, from one day to the next. The Champagne Socialist is a creature resplendent in self-regard, but plagued by self-doubt, insecurity and self-loathing. This is because they know, deep down, that they are really not that impressive or thoughtful, and that they mostly despise “the poor and downtrodden”. Also, despite their cover story about choosing not to be of the elite, they really would like to be, so they know that there must be some reason, some deficiency of character or breeding, why they are not of the elite. Thus, more insecurity, more deflection, more delusion.

Of course, the situation is very different in periods (like ours) when Champagne Socialism is made “the order of the day” in society. Now, the Champagne Socialist is encouraged to believe she is “of the elite”. Given her vanity, she eagerly believes this. She is aided in this delusion by her lack of imagination. Unable to see that power is an abstract thing that cares little for “the morals of the day”, she, who is utterly in thrall to the morals of the day, cannot understand that she is not actually powerful but merely a sheep, a follower with no ideas of her own or ability to analyse them. For her, in such an age, having “elite ideas” is the same thing as being the elite.

But now a whole other set of problems comes in. Her real enemy is no longer “the fuddy-duddy bigoted Establishment”, but the working-class, which not only instinctively rejects her precious ideas, laughs at her pretensions and sees through her claims to care, but threatens to absorb her back into its hideous, gaping mass of beer, cigarettes and smelly fecklessness. For that is all she sees in the working-class. She needs them to be like that; the more different they are from her, the less likely she is to get re-absorbed.

Hiding all of this from herself and the world is just one problem that comes when the Champagne Socialist gains power. But there are others, and they too stem from her vanity. She has contempt for society as a thing in and of itself, that exists beyond her and has duties other than servicing her self-image - and this contempt dictates what she will do to it now that she has power. Then, the questions tumble…

Why is it that, now in charge, she is not healing the corruption and sickness, but making it worse, while also destroying various protective structures that society developed over the centuries? Why is it that, now in a position to help “the poor and downtrodden”, she is instead making things even worse for them? Why is she habitually betraying her “beloved” client groups as she constantly searches for one that is “more deserving” and thus more conducive to her displaying her “goodness”? Why is it that, with society falling apart, she is choosing to paper over the cracks rather than fix things? Why is it that, with society only able to stumble onwards with huge amounts of lying, deceit and delusion, she isn’t “speaking truth to power” or being honest or insightful or brave, but instead gleefully manufacturing the lies, deceit and delusion?

What we are seeing here is what happens when power (whether real or illusory) is gained by people who are fundamentally unsuited to handling it. Like the toddler with a knife, only bad things can result.

The Champagne Socialist is not a leadership caste. They are bad at leadership at high levels, because they are fundamentally feminine in nature - bitchy, petty, gossipy, impractical, obsessed with social status, and disdainful of those beneath them and above them, and of the idea of society outlasting them either backwards or forwards in time. Their over-riding trait is vanity. They are not the aristocracy, or any aristocracy, but rather the middle-class exalted - entitled, expectant, impractical, self-regarding. They can maintain society, even improve it in small ways, but they cannot design or build or repair society, because those actions require a depth of sincerity and courage that they do not possess. Therefore in their efforts to improve society they resort to deconstructing it, to undoing the work of their betters.

Thus, the Champagne Socialist’s “superiority” is built not on character, nor even on the hollow ceremony of a dying order, and it isn’t “proven” by intellect or wealth or breeding, but simply by adhering to fashionable ideas. To hold these “luxury beliefs”, one needs to be fairly comfortable, but great wealth is not required. To defend these ideas (which are often counter-intuitive and contradictory) one needs to be fairly intelligent, but again nothing stellar is required. In fact high intelligence could be a bar to embracing these ideas, and therefore must be tempered by cowardice or dullness if Champagne Socialism is to be achieved. Most of these people come from middle-class (or above) backgrounds, but even that is unnecessary because haughtiness and disdain for riff-raff can be “learned” by someone from a humble background. (One might surmise that this was one of the reasons for expanding university attendance in the late 20th Century. Many is the lower-middle-class dullard absolutely convinced of her brilliance because she has a degree.)

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The worst way in which the Champagne Socialist betrayed “the poor and downtrodden” was by supporting mass immigration, which disproportionately afflicts the poor. Anyone with the intelligence, thoughtfulness or concerns that the Champagne Socialist always claims of herself would have realised this in advance, and if not, would have accepted it early on when it became obvious. Instead, for decades, the Champagne Socialist simply denied it, or blamed the poor for not being open-minded enough, for not enjoying varied cuisine enough. But, all the time, the poor were losing currency in her mind - her patience with them, her interest in them, her concern for them, were fast running out, because the foreigner was simply a better option for her. The foreigner exercised her claims to open-mindedness, intellectual flexibility, worldliness, far better than some smelly White prole. Of course, she despised and found disgusting the foreigner just as much, if not more, but she could hide that (from herself and others) by being full-throated in defence of him, especially at the expense of the White prole. This gave her a chance to indulge two things simultaneously: her contempt for her inferiors and her vanity about defending her inferiors. Like the combination of sugar and salt, it was irresistible. And of course, by selling out the White prole, she could claim to be doing the decent and socially responsible thing, and living up to her station in life as a “steward” of society.

Things got more vengeful over time as it became clear that the White prole was actually genuinely suffering by the presence of the foreigner. Let it be remembered that, in the Champagne Socialist’s mind, she is in charge of society, therefore the White prole was condemned to his fate by her, therefore she bore responsibility. But this was always a delusion, since she has never actually been in charge of society. Moreover, her reasons for why she had “done” this were themselves delusions, which had to change over time as each one was disproved. First, it would not inconvenience the prole at all, then it would but it was for his own good, then it was to knock the racism out of him, then it was a scornful punishment for his remaining racist - “if you won’t become open-minded, then you will become brown”.

However, once it was revealed that the foreigner was literally mass raping the White prole’s daughters, that presented a challenge for the Champagne Socialist. Her feminist claims were at threat. Her humanitarian claims were at threat. Her claim to be a steward of “her people” was at threat, since she had blatantly thrown them under the bus. It also rubbished her claims that all people are equal, and all groups can get along together, and race is a fiction, and diversity is a blessing, and different cultures learn from each other, etc. It rubbished both her worldview and her self-image.