America has a ruling class. Its parts control both parties. The larger part of the ruling class is Democrat, has been since the late 1960s, and became increasingly so with the presidency of George Bush, who represents the party hardy, rich kids the hardworking wealthy majority learned to detest in college (all I really need to know I learned at freshman orientation). For America’s meritocracy, the enemy is the lazy and overpaid—mostly Republican.Republicans, a minority of their class, in the 1960s linked up with “the Silent Majority”, Middle Americans who felt left out of the Democratic Party that intellectuals took over in 1968. Intellectuals were limousine liberals who escaped Vietnam and pushed racial equality in working class neighborhoods and schools. Middle America still believes in God, and associated much of what’s wrong in America—feminism, sexual freedom, crime, legal abortion, bussing, affirmative action—with the rise of secularism. And Middle America, which disproportionately died in Vietnam, believed America stands for principles worth dying for overseas.
The 1960s change, which politically led to Republicans controlling the White House, Congress, or both after every election beginning in 1968 except 1976, 1978, and 1992—34 of 40 years—means Republicans are a minority of the ruling class, but the natural ruling party of a center-right, faith-based country.
Democrats want the political power that comes from controlling the White House. As leftwing blogger Glenn Greenwald, in Salon.com ironically put it (Greenwald thinks he’s a representative of the masses, as in “vanguard of the proletariat”): “Preserving ‘the centralization of government power in the White House’ is the best and most effective means devised thus far for allowing the political elite to run the country without interference from the dirty, stupid masses. . .”
Whether or not Democrats capture the presidency depends on whether or not they can view the country the way average Americans do. In a democracy, winners don’t ignore “the dirty, stupid masses,” they fight on their behalf.
2 comments:
David Aikman says:
"I wasn't sure quite what you meant about the 'ruling class,' and I was even more confused when you wrote, 'The Republicans, a minority of their class' How could the GOP be a minority in its class? In which class? Are the Republicans a minority of the middle class? I was confused by this."
I should have written, "Republicans, a minority of the ruling class."
Having found themselves a minority in the old-style political system, where two parts of the elite competed with one another by manipulating chunks of the masses, Republicans responded to minority status within the ruling class by actually listening to heartfelt "silent majority" concerns, and gaining popular support by listening. The Republicans' changed position on abortion is the best example of listening to the people. Now it's time for Democrats to do their own listening.
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