Rick Santorum, Democracy and Education

This post comes from guest blogger Zach Fox, a masters degree candidate at Peabody College, Vanderbilt University.

In a season of disheartening and sometimes alarming political rhetoric, Rick Santorum’s recent speech to the conservative Values Voters Summit may be a new low for social studies educators following this fall’s presidential election race. Santorum’s speech included a number of ahistorical assertions. He also clearly dismissed attempts by economic conservatives to distance themselves from social conservatives, but these are not new positions from the former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania.

More troubling is Santorum’s jarring claim that, “[social conservatives] will never have the elite smart people on our side, because they believe they should have the power to tell you what to do.” One wonders just who he means by “the elite smart people.” After all, Santorum has three post-secondary degrees, including an M.B.A. and a J.D. He served two terms as a U.S. Senator, and he emerged as former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s chief rival in the Republican presidential primary contests. He apparently means elite, smart, socially liberal people, but conveniently omits that last qualifier.

Santorum's statements position socially conservative Americans, and the founts of their values (the church and the family), as opponents of anti-democratic forces, here vaguely labeled "elite smart people...[who] believe they should have the power to tell you what to do." These forces are closely tied to higher education, continues Santorum: “So our colleges and universities, they’re not going to be on our side.”