It’s not easy being elite.

“Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.”
--Henry IV, Part II (3. 1. 33)

“Those who try to lead the people can only do so by following the mob.”
--Oscar Wilde

“Stakeholders,” as we have said, is a word describing the interest group leaders liberals cultivate to hold their majority. Democracy is about people, voters, and capitalism empowers people, consumers. But when we legitimize “stakeholders’” rule, we entrench a status quo of club members who already have elite status. “Stakeholders” represent the parts of the Democratic coalition—leaders of public and private sector unions, Hispanic groups, civil rights organizations, the women’s movement, environmental groups—that deliver the organized blocs of voters liberals need to retain power.

As long as organized voting blocs do their part—follow their “stakeholder” leaders—liberal Democrats will retain control. We must be clear. Stakeholders have real power. It’s no surprise that America’s most powerful union leader, Andy Stern of the 2 million-member Service Employees International Union, has visited Obama’s White House more often than any other guest—an average of 3 times a month. Obama and other liberal leaders work hard to accommodate various stakeholders; it’s how they gain and retain power. Obama’s White House resembles a medieval king’s court, with the ruler engineering compromises among his various supporters.

Obama’s court is liberal. Minorities, women, labor, their leaders anyway, and the rest of the national elite including the media all share values. They reject war. They want big government and big spending at home, along with more taxes to support bigger government. They’ve got their act together inside the castle.

What they worry about are the peasants outside. What Oscar Wilde calls “the mob.” Do the elite genuinely worry about the “mob,” or do they worry most about elite figures beyond their control who might organize the mob? It matters little in practice.

Liberals want an enemy with a face, one they can treat as potentially powerful. And they don’t want to appear to be against the people. So the liberal elite still rail against Republican “malefactors of wealth” who they claim use money and various ruses to fool the mob. And more recently, liberals constantly attack “right wing extremists,” often associated with the “religious right,” a force that does genuinely seem to concern them.

Liberals should be worried. Now powerless Republicans and conservatives have little choice but to listen to those outside the liberal castle, and work with that mob to recapture power. Republicans believe they know best how to create jobs—you do so by helping small business. So if the mob cares most about job creation, and if liberals don’t deliver jobs, the mob will indeed threaten our king’s crown.