5 ms·

>in democracies like the US and UK -- where potential leaders seem to primarily be chosen solely on the basis of social class Maybe that is true in the UK, but

>in democracies like the US and UK -- where potential leaders seem to primarily be chosen solely on the basis of social class Maybe that is true in the UK, but that is clearly not the case in the US, unless you are going to try to argue that Obama is a WASP.

lmm 13y ago
"WASP" is not a social class. Obama is a Harvard-educated lawyer.
- bananacurve 13y ago
  Obama's father went to Harvard but his grandfather was a cook. Hardly a pedigree.
  - pyre 13y ago
    Obama is president, not his father. He grew up as a lawyer's son, not in a working-class household.
  - vidarh 13y ago
    Which only demonstrates that occasionally someone manages to move between social classes, and has no bearing on the argument made above.
cma 13y ago
For much of the US's history many states had wealth and/or land requirements for holding office. Obama is as White/Anglo-Saxon as he is African (as if these terms have any meaning at all) via his mother, and he is ostensibly a protestant.