Back in the 1992 election, I was sitting in what we used to call a working class bar. This was a downscale neighborhood in Boston and people still worked so working class was the correct label. Nowadays, “working class” almost always means not working. As soon as you hear the phrase, “working families” you know that no one is working and there’s no father around to make it a family.
Anyway, this bar was white Irish working class. I was just killing some time, so I stopped in for a beer. The place was busy, but not so loud that you could not hear the TV. Pat Buchanan came on and the Irish girl next to me started to hiss. I was a little surprised, but then she volunteered that Buchanan was a racist and hated immigrants. She was as white as a ghost and her people came over in the 19th century.
As these things go, others joined her in talking about Buchanan and some other pols. I no longer recall most of the details, but the main take away for me was that these working class whites were trying really hard to not be working class in their attitudes. They may work in service jobs and construction, but they were not going to be blue collar. Class for them was not about economics. It was an aesthetic. It turns out Engels was sort of right.
Sam Francis said back in ’92 that Buchanan, while being right, was too nice for electoral politics. He was right about the last part as the managerial class painted Buchanan as a quasi-Nazi bigot and anti-Semite. About the former, the conventional wisdom was that Buchanan was a yesterday man, advocating policies that went out of style in the 1950’s. The future was technology, mass media and working class Irish gals worried about racism.
What happened, of course, was that the credit boom following the Louvre Accords allowed the people in charge to keep the party going, without the people taking notice of the great hollowing out of the middle. Cheap credit meant buying better stuff made in foreign lands so everyone could feel like they were doing well. Cheap credit also sent the stock market soaring, so everyone felt like they were rich.
I was at lunch today with someone who is a solid suburban Republican. We were laughing about politics and he said something odd. He said, “You know, old Bernie is a nut, but his description of what’s wrong with this country is not that far off. He’s the only guy talking about this stuff. I’m not kidding. If his solutions were not so crazy, I’d probably vote for the guy.”
I was a little surprised, but I had to agreed. In fact, I have agreed for a while. Somewhere along the way we deified rich people and they get to run wild. Look at all the bankers who walked away from their wreckage with millions in bonuses. The robber barons of Silicon Valley are trying to bring back slavery and supposedly sensible people defend it. Liberal Democrats defend open borders. Then there is the political class that seems to live a life without consequences.
That’s the thing about this election that does not get discussed. Bernie Sanders lacks all of Trump’s media savvy, yet he is about to drop a house on Hillary Clinton. These are Democrats so some portion of the vote really thinks communism is the answer, but the great bulk of those planning to vote for Sanders are doing so out of spite. It is a big middle finger to the political class.
Trump, with all his faults, is a better candidate than Sanders, simply because he does not have a head full of nutty ideas. Even so, he is no one’s idea of a great candidate. He’s rude and he is often crude. His speeches don’t make a lot of sense most of the time. My bet is most people planning to vote for him get that, but they want to send a message. They also trust he will not do anything crazy if he ends up in the White House. That and he is right on the big issues like immigration.
I think what we’re seeing is the long overdue reckoning for the mistakes of the 60’s and 70’s. The disastrous welfare programs, the massive expansion of the federal state, the rise of Cultural Marxism as the official religion of the ruling elite. The squalor of the 70’s should have forced a roll back of all these things. What should have happened in the 80’s and 90’s was a return to normalcy. Instead, the credit boom put all that on hold.
Worse still, it fueled the growth of the managerial class that is decidedly hostile to normal people. Turn on the TV and you see an endless stream of degeneracy that mocks the foundations of western civilization and the traditions that have preserved and nurtured it. Traditional America is treated as a hate crime. The people in entertainment live like royalty, while accusing middle American of an endless list of crimes.
Pat Caddell, the veteran pollster and social observer, is calling this a revolution. He may not be way off base. It is a revolt, but a revolt against thirty years of a ruling class papering over the mistakes of the past. Egalitarianism, anti-racism and multiculturalism are fine in the faculty lounge, but they are a cultural dead end as a ruling class religion. The people in charge have run out of ways to hide this truth and now the long overdue hell is going to be paid.
Letting Microsoft count the votes is like letting the fox guard the henhouse.
Really sad analysis. Bernie is the logical outcome for Liberals who base their policies on class warfare, envy, greed, and hatred. They depend on pitting one group against another. They promote something for nothing and the destruction of everything that made America great.
A finger to the establishment? Are you kidding this is the logical outcome of the drug ridden hippies and their STDs of the 60s. Bernie, a failure in all things but socialism, is their leader. He represents what a segment of America wants, Marxism.
Its amusing to see people who attack big business worship at the altar of big government.
“Trump, with all his faults, is a better candidate than Sanders, simply because he does not have a head full of nutty ideas. Even so, he is no one’s idea of a great candidate. He’s rude and he is often crude. His speeches don’t make a lot of sense most of the time. My bet is most people planning to vote for him get that, but they want to send a message. They also trust he will not do anything crazy if he ends up in the White House. That and he is right on the big issues like immigration.”
I think that about sums up the Trump support.
If you’re actually interested in what’s going on with the middle class and its “hollowing out”, I suggest you take a look at Census Bureau Table 690, which makes it clear that the reason the middle class is shrinking is because people are getting richer. As a percent of the population, the household income (inflation adjusted) brackets below $100,000 shrank for all brackets, while the percent of households earning more than $100,000 more than doubled since 1970. During this same time, the average household size was getting smaller, meaning that per capita income soared.
A little bit of education goes a long way. I understand this puts a pin in your fantasies of America’s economic state, but no matter what you believe, the truth is still the truth and you’re living with it, whether or no you believe it. Hoping that people base their choices and policy preferences based on your fantasies, instead of the truth, will make people’s lives worse.
I wish I had a nickel for every time a libertarian whack-job gave me that speech.
“Egalitarianism, anti-racism and multiculturalism are fine in the faculty lounge….”
======================
No they are not.
Thoughts lead to actions, sick thoughts lead to sick behavior.
Sick people harboring sick thoughts of sick behavior against others should be shunned, ostracized, and then beaten.
Stop communism at the base level, where it is planted, in the human mind.
Think what you want, but understand your behavior has consequences.
Zman: Were you at Triple D’s in Jamaica Plain?
Ha. Yeah, me and Whitey would have a cold one after dumping a body.
I was at Joey’s in Brighton. In my youth I would be known to hang my hat in JP, perhaps even have a drink under extreme social pressure.
McRory’s in Brighton, 1965—1969. Cheap beer, bumper pool, and the regulars tolerated us with equanimity.
Dropping of the house will have to wait because The Liar™ is taking Iowa tonight. How she is still able to participate in this is discouraging.
So much in this post…
I think that Louvre was — intentionally or not — what put the banksters in charge. With fiat-ization of the G6 currencies complete, the door was open to all of the excesses we’ve seen over these three decades. FOREX speculation, derivatives, securitization of everything from mortgages to energy… I think all of those things would be hobbies without the flexibility and mutability that fiat money gives speculators.
Caddell has been warning of revolution for some time. Steyn was making the same noises for a while, but then someone apparently reminded him that as a green-card holder, such loose talk could be used to to ship him back to Canada, so he backed off.
The managerial class seems to be in deep denial over the possibility of revolutionary change. This will almost certainly guarantee an over-reaction once it does get through to them.
Sometimes I wonder if they do know what’s coming but just don’t care. Maybe the dudes at Google are telling them that within ten years your brains will be uploaded to quantum supercomputers and your bodies will be starships. All they have to do is keep the lid on for a bit more. Ten more years of deficit spending to keep the prolefeed flowing.
I originally wrote this at another site, but I still frequently ask myself two things: One, will the elites fight to hold on to what they have. Two, after this is all over, will will there still be enough trust left in society for concepts like “representative government” and “market economy” to be valid.
The real issue is over who controls the guys with the guns, and money doesn’t talk, it screams.
People on the right are under the delusion that law enforcement is naturally on their side, when I have known enough cops to realize the they will do nothing to jeopardize their paychecks or retirements, will turn their weapons on those who might jeopardize that arrangement, and are among the most heavily unionized and highly compensated government employees.
The late great robber baron Jay Gould once said that if things got too out of hand, he’d hire one half of the population to kill off the other half.
One of Obama’s first actions as president was to purge the military of general staff officers who were not completely in synch with wit the multicultural diversity agenda.
Talk about walling off the process to make sure there is no next time.
The 2008 election was effectively the Plutocrat’s Coup.
I for one welcome our new robot overlords.
This is where we’re heading when only the police have guns: http://jlepore.fineartstudioonline.com/dataviewer.asp?keyvalue=14814&page=Blog&blogmonth=20153
“Traditional America is treated as a hate crime.” I think this is one of your best lines, ever. And it about sums up the state of things.
If Trump doesn’t get elected for President, the accepted wisdom will be that “America” likes unfettered mass-immigration and that anyone opposed to Muslim unvetted mass-immigration is out of touch with the majority of americans. As a result, it may be that no future candidate will ever go near that topic. If Trump wins, every politician will have to address the topic.
I’m not sure they care what Americans think about much of anything. This election is just proof they need to wall off the process better so there is no next time.
They’ll move towards Trump’s position if he wins, or they’ll at least pretend to. But if he loses, it could well be toxic. In the UK, the Conservatives at first described UKIP as “swivel-eyed loons” but have significantly reduced immigration from the Muslim world. Even Labour ran with one of their slogans being “Controls on immigration”, though nobody believed them. If you’ll look at the comments on the Guardian (obnoxious paper), tons of their readers have had it up to here with Muslim immigration. Labour’s new leader wants open borders and hugs with Hamas and negotiations with Isis. If he keeps it up, Labour won’t be in power anytime soon.
If Trump wins, his position will become far less toxic. Quite a few Democrat voters agree with his Islam position just so long as it isn’t presented as Trump’s position.
Mostly, politicians only want two things: for the media to flatter them, not be attacked by people on television and to be elected. Most people (managerial class included) want to be liked and will adopt whatever view is fashionable.
My sense is the gloating over a Trump loss this week will be so intense that they will not have time to realize that Cruz won. But, at some point they will rally to Rubio as their champion in New Hampshire.
If I were American and the Republican nominee was a sock with one note pinned to it saying “Will not let any Muslim who just might sympathize with Jihad into America” and another note saying “I’ve had it up to here with the topic of ‘global warming'” then I’d vote for the sock. It would make for a fine President.
Voting for socks is fine: more than one person I know thinks the political ‘front’ of our elite is just that and so any sock is manipulated by unseen hands, or feet. The global warming hands and feet find it profitable for now, so that will continue for a while.
But on the issue of muslims and jihad, there is an issue. Ultimately all muslims have to agree with what they are told and they are being told that jihad is the way to go. If for now they don’t seem to go along with it then it is another sock hiding a particularly nasty hand. Islam’s default position is jihad in one form or another.
Finally, post-Iowa… seems to me all are still ‘in the game’ and the carnival rolls on.
Yep. A favorite Arab proverb is “the dogs barked but the caravan moved on.”
I think Trump coming in second in Iowa might be considered a “win.”
I think I would come down that way, but it depends on what happens next. If his vote in New Hampshire collapses then we know it was a huge loss. If he wins New Hampshire then Cruz starts to look like Rick Santorum.
Where does Cruz stand on mass-immigration and Muslim immigration?
Would Cruz be as good as The Sock?
If voting changed anything, it wouldn’t be allowed.
“yet he is about to drop a house on Hillary Clinton.”
That goes in the Z man hall of fame!
I agree. I may have to steal it, it’s so good. I assume it’s a Wizard of Oz reference, so appropriate.