How To Get On In Society

Despite his attempts at gentility Dinesh D’Souza just can’t help flashing his wad
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When a clever and ambitious wingnut makes a lot of money, he invariably begins to ape his oligarchical masters. Naturally he believes he was born to be one of them. After all, isn’t it his destiny to be a Ruler of the Universe?

But the devil is in the details and it’s the teensy little slips, like tacky carpets, pleather and full-on genocidal wingnuttery, that let the Dinesh D’Souza’s of this world down. No matter how hard they try to be classy they give themselves away as imitating sycophants.

D’Souza is author of such jeux d’esprit as:

…a parody of African American students at Dartmouth entitled “This Sho Ain’t No Jive Bro”; an interview with a Ku Klux Klan member featuring a graphic of a hanged black man;…

and his latest book is the charmingly-titled “The Enemy At Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11”. He makes a shedload of money from mad, rich rightwingers by pandering – at a price – to their darkest, paranoid, eliminationist fantasies.

But all his money can’t buy him any taste, as Tbogg notes:

D’More D’Souza

Just to point out what makes seemingly intelligent people say incredibly stupid things, it should be noted that wingnut welfare pays really well.D’Souza lives here in San Diego in Fairbanks Ranch, one of our more exclusive gated communities:

Since Dartmouth, the conservative fray has been quite remunerative for D’Souza. Six years ago, he and his wife bought their home in Fairbanks Ranch. The nearly 8000-square-foot house has six bedrooms, seven and a half baths, and a four-car garage, where they keep their maroon 1992 Jaguar XJS. A circular drive fronts the French country stone house. The cathedral-like front room, with its full-length mirrors and tapestries, has an 18th-century French decor of (veneered) golden maple burl furniture. The slick floors echo like a museum as one walks through. In his office, there’s wall-to-wall leopard-print carpet; floor-to-ceiling bookcases are stocked with titles in history, politics, and philosophy. The view out back features a bright blue pool and the arboretum-like landscape.

Today, at his desk, D’Souza is comfortably dressed in preppy garb. Plain shirt (with the polo player insignia), plain pants, tasseled loafers. At one point, his wife Dixie breezes in. She is blonde, petite, California-tanned, and effervescent about her husband. She’s wearing a stylish pink plastic-leather rain jacket.

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Added: For those not from my neck of the woods – Fairbanks Ranch

Eww. The words leopardskin, pink and plastic-leather should never appear in the same galaxy let alone the same article. And on a Republican too. Ick. I’ll presume the word stylish was ironic, as clothes worn by Republicans are obviously transmuted into unstylish tat merely by the act of a wingnut wearing them. Go on, name me one truly chic Repubkcan… can’t, can you?

I love the deftly slipped in (veneered) tooi, n relation to the furniture; you can almost see the delicately-curled sneer. Quite Betjemanian.

Poet and cultural critic John Betjeman would’ve loved mocking D’Souza’s social pretensions (he felt a social fraud all his life too) and he knew just where to slip the knife in. Just as in the above quoted-profile I bet D’Souza wouldn’t even have felt it. He”d’ve had the poem framed.

Here’s Betjeman on petty-bourgeois aspiration:

How to get on in society

Phone for the fish-knives, Norman
As Cook is a little unnerved;
You kiddies have crumpled the serviettes
And I must have things daintily served

Are the requisites all in the toilet ?
The frills round the cutlets can wait
Till the girl has replenished the cruets
And switched on the logs in the grate

It’s ever so close in the lounge, dear,
But the vestibule’s comfy for tea
And Howard is out riding on horseback
So do come and take some with me

Now here’s a fork for your pastries
And do use the couch for your feet;
I know what I wanted to ask you –
Is trifle sufficient for sweet ?

Milk and then just as it comes dear?
I’m afraid the preserve’s full of stones ;
Beg pardon, I’m soiling the doilies
With afternoon tea-cakes and scones
John Betjeman (1906-1984) Poet Laureate

The historical details may’ve changed but the tasteless tossers are always with us.

(See also D’Souza, onscreen Colbertian filleting of )

Read more: Wingnuts