Van Jones: Dems ‘have a problem with elitism’

Democratic political commentator Van Jones says his party comes across as elitist and condescending to voters.

“Everybody knows we have a problem with elitism,” he said on ABC’s “The View” Thursday.

{mosads}“Liberals and Democrats, we see ourselves as champions of the poor and downtrodden,” added Jones, a former adviser to President Obama.

“But we have somehow let a little camp of elitist-sounding, snobby people come into the party, and it’s obnoxious. They talk down to people, and everybody hates it.”

Jones said Republicans, meanwhile, are struggling with bigotry and racism in their ranks.

“The Republicans see themselves as the party of color-blind individualism, and that’s beautiful. But they have somehow created a space for a small number of racially hateful people to come in their party. They’ve got to deal with that too.”

Jones added he does not consider those who voted for President-elect Donald Trump racist, however.

“I was not saying all 50 to 60 million people who voted for Donald Trump are racially-hateful people who want to be in the alt-right, neo-Nazi camp,” he said. “In fact, it would be unfair to the Trump voters to say that they’re all racist.

“[But] to say that the alt-right and the neo-Nazis who were celebrating weren’t a part, that would be unfair to the rest of America,” added Jones.

Jones endorsed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the presidential race.

Jones previously described Trump’s shocking upset of Clinton as partly a “whitelash.”

“This was a whitelash,” he said on CNN on Nov 9. “This was a whitelash against a changing country, it was a whitelash against a black president in part.

“Donald Trump has a responsibility tonight to come out and reassure people that he is going to be the president of all the people who he insulted and offended and brushed aside.”