CNN's Bourdain: ‘Privileged left' has ‘utter contempt’ for working-class Americans

When celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain took a moment to critique modern liberals recently, the host of CNN's "Parts Unknown" really let it rip.

In an interview with Reason magazine published Thursday, the liberal Bourdain, between discussion of recipes and spices, slammed the "self-congratulatory" and "privileged left" for their elitist disdain for working-class Americans.

From the interview:

The utter contempt with which privileged Eastern liberals such as myself discuss red-state, gun-country, working-class America as ridiculous and morons and rubes is largely responsible for the upswell of rage and contempt and desire to pull down the temple that we're seeing now.

I've spent a lot of time in gun-country, God-fearing America. There are a hell of a lot of nice people out there, who are doing what everyone else in this world is trying to do: the best they can to get by, and take care of themselves and the people they love.

And the CNN host and chef didn't stop there. Bourdain went on to call out his fellow liberals for denying conservatives "their basic humanity and legitimacy of their views" and "mock[ing] them at every turn, and treat[ing] them with contempt." The self-described liberal concluded that such tactics aren't helpful.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who gave Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton a run for her money in the party's primary this spring, made a similar observation in mid-November, saying he was "deeply humiliated" by the left's inability to rally blue-collar Americans to the progressive cause.

President-elect Donald Trump, on the other hand, surged to a surprising electoral victory on Nov. 8 thanks, in large part, to working-class Americans in states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Clinton seemed to be so convinced that her "blue wall" there wasn't in jeopardy that she never even visited Wisconsin.

Bourdain also told Reason that it is not, in fact, flattering for liberals to constantly voice outrage over their right-leaning counterparts' opinions:

The self-congratulatory tone of the privileged left—just repeating and repeating and repeating the outrages of the opposition—this does not win hearts and minds. It doesn't change anyone's opinions. It only solidifies them, and makes things worse for all of us. We should be breaking bread with each other, and finding common ground whenever possible. I fear that is not at all what we've done.