Friday, March 25, 2016

It is all about class....if you don't believe me ask the BBC



I have long been convinced that this election is a "class  election." Not a liberal vs conservative split. Rather an Elites vs the Common Man election. A split that splits the parties. Families. Friends. People who have lost touch with their working class  roots turn to the elitists who scorn the people from which they came. A common human reaction. You see it all the time.

There is also a very strong unstated racial subtext. Well much less unstated than usual. The injection of Black Lives Matters and the blatant racism of Barack Obama has divided the country in a manner that we have not seen in a long time. Black Lives Matters has demanded a reaction to their demands. Well they are getting it. In spades. So to speak.

Of course this is not only my opinion. Many other people feel the same way.


BBC agrees in article about the election:
"A much more useful lens through which to view this election is that of class. This isn't exactly a class war - that's too European for the US - but it is a class election. And indeed a race election.
In the states that he has won, Mr Trump draws the clear majority of his support from working-class men who are white. People without a college education who feel that the economic policies of free trade and low taxes on the wealthy have not helped them.
And they are quite right. Manufacturing wages in America have been almost stagnant since the 1970s. If you are a 55-year-old auto worker who has lost your job to an immigrant or - far more likely - a robot, you don't just feel left behind by the forces of globalisation and low taxes, you really have been left behind."
The very economic policies that have defined the Republican party for the past two decades have not helped the working class here to adjust to a globalised economy and a technological revolution."
The class divide is what drives the utter contempt and condescending smirks you see from conservative pundits. They don't want to be associated with those low class trailer park people. They will take their votes but they don't want to listen to them. They would rather join with their liberal friends in a cocktail and pursue consulting and commenting gigs that feather their nests.
It is very unfortunate when you see people with strong working class roots turning up their noses at this movement. Because it is a movement. Trump is only the leaky vessel that serve to galvanize it. The Tea Party was the first embodiment of this movement. The elites squashed it. They helped Democrats win to stop Tea Party people from getting to Congress. The Tea Party was the genteel and gentlemanly face of the Movement. They got punched in the face. Trump is a much rougher and vulgar face of the movement. The Elites and the Quislings have their knives out for him. They are pulling out all stops. Their plan is to deny him  the nomination at the convention even if he wins fair and square. They will install a puppet like Paul Ryan and pretend they are doing it to protect the party and the conservative movement. They might succeed in stealing the nomination even though it will much more difficult.
Heres the thing. If they succeed in nullifying the votes of the people by back-room deals they really won't like what happens next. The next manifestation of this movement will make Donald Trump look like Rebbecca of Sunnybrooke Farm. It would behoove them to give Trump a fair shot to win or lose as President. If they want to keep the working class in the Republican party. 
Otherwise this is 1860 and a new party will be born. 

29 comments:

chickelit said...

What gets me is that established candidates like Jeb!, Mitt Romney, Marco Rubio, Kasich, et al. still don't get what's driving Trump's support. Maybe they do get it -- they're smart guys -- but, they really and truly are opposed to a huge part of their base. They are willfully going to defy the wishes of the electorate -- whether it be Trump or Cruz.

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

Well said. It is a class election. A similar dynamic drives Sanders Support.

bagoh20 said...

Trump will fight the robots. He's the only one who tells the truth about them. They want our jobs, they are unemotional, establishment, Canadian, and have no souls - just like Cruz.

They also cheat on their robot wives during routine maintenance shutdowns, even though they are clearly labeled "Shinning Conservatives".

Trump is not a robot. He will shut them all down, and make them feed each other into giant beautiful and amazing metal recycling machines made of gold and apple pie.

Nobody else even understands the genius of that, because it's so new, so outside the box, so American. Even if Trump is a robot, he's our robot.

edutcher said...

Nicely put. I've mentioned 1860 a few times, as well as 1968, in terms of a watershed feel, but 1860 seems to be a very important point in terms of what had once been the Republican Party turning into the Whigs which in the 1850s was often called dough-faces (as opposed to RINOs) due to their willingness to cave to the Democrats (ironic that one of them, Franklin Pierce, has, among his direct descendants, Barbara Pierce Bush and her family).

It is why people are so mad and why Trump has an odd coterie of endorsers, more than a few of them high profile blacks.

The lines The Tea Party was the genteel and gentlemanly face of the Movement. They got punched in the face. Trump is a much rougher and vulgar face of the movement... The next manifestation of this movement will make Donald Trump look like Rebecca of Sunnybrooke Farm. which embody the disgust of people like April nonetheless encapsulate the anger out there and the reasons behind it and why an ideological Conservative who would go down to defeat in gentlemanly fashion holds little appeal to people who are sick of losing, politely or otherwise.

What happens next is going to be interesting. If Cruz is forced out, there is nothing to stop a Trump nomination (Kasich doesn't have the support or the organization). There may be nothing to stop it anyway, in which case, the party fathers will have to face an accommodation or a cataclysm worse than the 30s.

The very economic policies that have defined the Republican party for the past two decades have not helped the working class here to adjust to a globalised economy and a technological revolution.

Interesting that period specified is the end of the Reagan Revolution and the reassumption of power by the Rockefeller wing (or worse).

Good post, Troop.

bagoh20 said...

Is there anything more virtue signaling in America than claiming to be working class even if you never work. It's like being an "actor" in Los Angeles.

bagoh20 said...

The problem with jobs in America is that we just never pick the right guy to attend all those meetings, and dinners, and photo ops. I'm sure we'll finally get it right this time.

Which President did that last time?

edutcher said...

bagoh20 said...

Is there anything more virtue signaling in America than claiming to be working class even if you never work. It's like being an "actor" in Los Angeles.

Who cares about "virtue signalling" and whatever it is?

You play games about this stuff as if it makes any difference. Trump lived a commercial life and relates to people better than Cruz. It's the difference between Dubya and Lurch or Reagan and Mondale.

You always talk about wanting change, but support someone who shows little sign of achieving it. You want theoretical ideology, and reject the reality on the ground.

That, to me, makes no sense. When Reagan was about to be inaugurated, the media called it a riverboat gamble. I regard Trump in something of the same way, not because of the lies and misrepresentations you accept uncritically, but I realize he has flaws we haven't had in a President in 200 years.

PS If you've suffered some kind of loss, as Troop noted, my sympathies. This is a lousy time of the year for The Blonde and me, too.

Anything I've said today is based on our philosophical and political disagreements only. I had no intention of making a bad personal time worse.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Why would the powerful, having gotten away with lying from birth as a pre-congenital condition to the extent only the obtuse-because-only-then-a-few-can-understand-it-and-that-makes-us-special give a fuck what the little people think, in reality, compared to the unconscious and ALWAYS verified and ego-satisfying ethos of I Deserve Great Wealth And Respect Because ME?

This is why, Limbaugh has mentioned this, the true blue-blood elites hate(ed) the idea someone earned money through legal creation through devices his/her own. Pre-2000 this was manifest; Silicon Valley has altered this yet it is still relevant as the New Wealth only feels it appropriate, given their station, to impress Old Wealth. What the Christ else would they do to pass all that time, besides bitch about the quality of "help" these days.

Old Rich hates the idea their ego might be false, to themselves, so the idea some concept (via person) like New Rich is worthy of nothing but stylistic scorn, until the New Wealth entertains.

I agree with them to an extent; I don't trust proles like myself either solely prolely. If Trump has a grudge against people who his dad is reported to have told him to have grudges about, I don't mind that, as Trump will win only knowingly. And all the virtue signalers only feel the need to do it because of what their dad told them, to a large extent.

The majesty of the United States is the continuation of the idea of constitutional relevance and reverence even as we as individuals change our perspectives with the passage of time, as Churchill of course has been quoted as summarizing.

Trooper York said...

I was referring to Cruz's campaign.

It died today.

I don't want bags to have the sads.

Trooper York said...

Little Marco claims another victim.

bagoh20 said...

Even if that was true, Troop, I don't get the sads over presidential candidates. I have nothing invested in Cruz. I just think he'd be a better President than anyone else running. It's that simple - no emotion, no crazy hopes and expectations of great change even though I want that. I do get the sads over my fellow Americans being so gullible time after time, and being played by every new thing like they are at the carnival for the first time in their lives. It's not class that separates us. Do you Trumpers think you are more working class than me? more American? more ballsy? more authentic? Because that's what you are suggesting simply because I don't like Trump . I'm suggesting you are more gullible, more emotional, and more invested than you should be in a stranger, but that's all I'm suggesting about you guys.

Chip Ahoy said...

Good post, Troop. I do have a problem though with the original description. Too broad. They're looking at numbers and drawing understanding from it. And Trump supporters are more than just displaced working class although I admit that is huge numerically, and they're not all short diplomas either, and they're not all men and they're not all working and they're not all white and they're not all living in trailer parks. I have a real problem with these general descriptors including cutsie substitute words Trumpetts, Trumpsters, Trumpers what have you to register your disgust and your resistance to speak intelligently to them, a refusal of respect. Again. Toward team members. Teams suck. Teams just flat fucking suck and they always will.

Teams of humans suck and always will. Teams of angels are ace.

This will be a huge part of your post mortal training, how to get on as teams. Presently you suck at it and so do I.

Man, that's going to be rough. You have no idea how difficult it's going to be working with me stuck on a team. We'll all be miserable.

Anyway. Another article that probes the depth and fails to use the magic words that signal comprehension, the ones that activate pissed off voters to action. The only proper action they have at this late juncture, vote the moth&^&^kers out. "complete lack of representation."

Had the gap created by Washington so-called elite not been so great as to allow Trump to enter then Cuz is certainly the most damaging weapon available. Alas, by their own doing, Paul Ryan specifically, the nail in their coffin, goddamnit that was stupid, but really their poor showing all along, made space for Trump to exist and to thrive. What a fucking bummer for cohesion. What a loss for representative government. A walking talking box of billionaire nitroglycerin made himself available right then to occupy the space. Just as FOX News took occupancy within unserved space. Until then for them the worst case scenario was Cruz but now and due to their own profligacy, malfeasance, lying and "complete lack of representation" he's best case scenario.

It's still a long way to go. Ace and Twitter have months to post serial anti-Trump opinion pieces and heavy doses of Trump discouragement daily. It's such a fucking drag to read.

[I grew up understanding it rude to even ask somebody who they voted for, far less demand they defend their choice. This cycle I discover my new conservative mates every bit as aggressive, forceful, insisting, A-type personality about who everyone else must hate as the self-styled liberal progressive Democrats that I abandoned fully, with absoluteness, for not accepting that nonsense in my life. I haven't the energy for it. And here it is again. In my world, the world I create for myself, you are freaks. And I cannot keep doing this.]

Laslo Spatula said...

Chip at March 26, 2016 at 1:49 AM:

Yes.

I am Laslo.

Amartel said...

Bagoh @12:57
Yes!

Amartel said...

The BBC thinks this election is about class. What a stunning development! Who would have expected that from the spokesbox of a nation obsessed with class. It's the snooties versus the proles! Plays right into everyone's precious pretentions. Divide, divide, divide and divide again. Put us in our smaller and smaller boxes where we can rage against the people in the next box over - who are just like us. Distract us with fictions about our differences so we never take the time and have no patience to see - or hear or read - the bigger picture.

edutcher said...

Trooper York said...

Little Marco claims another victim.

I think you're right. It's pretty well established, wishful thinking to the contrary, that "Rubio operatives" are behind the adultery story.

No matter where it goes, the dirty trick played on Rubio in HI is coming back to bite Cruz.

As I said yesterday, he is between a Scylla and Charybdis of his own making.

Amartel said...

Bagoh @12:57
Yes!


You and he miss the point. It's not a oneupmanship thing the way the Cruzzers like to play it ("We have the Only True Conservative").

It's about being ticked off and wanting the thing fixed. 2 months ago, the average Trump supporter didn't care about who was more working class or who was more Conservative - it was knock off the Whigs (actually, I think most still don't).

The Cruzzers see it as a crusade. Trump's people see it as a fight, a brawl, and would have welcomed help from anybody - nobody objects to Carson helping Trump.

Cruzzers want to argue about how many angels are dancing on any given candidate's pin. Trump's people could care less.

PS And yet, the Cruz crowd, abetted by the we hate Trump crowd, are more divisive than anybody else.

cliff claven said...

I see the savior of the common man. He wears $5000 suits, rides in aircraft emblazoned with his name, and shits on the common workers he has employed. And, he employs Judenrat to help him fool the true common people.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

I've read somewhere recently on the net an analogy to the Dirt People versus the Cloud People.

Where the Cloud People are the elites who live in the heady clouds of political insider land, academia, the central planners who dream to dictate the lives of everyone else and who have no real contact with the Dirt People.

The Dirt People being those who live ON the ground. Those who make things, do things, create and work. Touching the earth and the dirt. And who are expected to support and pay for the dreamy ideas of the Cloud People, yet never themselves get much benefit from the arrangement.

The Dirt People are heartily sick and tired of the Cloud People and this election is a revolt against the Cloud People. It crosses party lines, racial lines (somewhat) and is a real revolt. Right now it is an intellectual revolt, but the Cloud People need to beware because without the Dirt People, they will not exist. And the Dirt People know HOW to make that happen.

Trooper York said...

I think that is right on the money DBQ.

Trooper York said...

Judenradt?

Seriously?

The Dude said...

Milton Zenobia is Meade, right?

Trooper York said...

Yes.

edutcher said...

Judenrat is better than Judenrein, but they're not that far apart.

The Dude said...

That's an odd persona for him to adapt - his "wife's" first husband was Jewish, and while Judaism passes through the mother rather than the father, assuming that Ann was faithful to him, in some respects, her gay offspring are at least partially Jewish as well.

I think the house full of wine and whine is really taking a toll on that poor dumb bastard's mental state, not that it was all that robust to begin with.

Trooper York said...

Self hate is a corrosive thing. It eats away at you.

Rabel said...

Whoa. We have been blessed with a visitation from Mr. Spatula. I suspect it is Easter related. He is after all an internet Messiah of sorts.

So, Laslo (if my presumed familiarity is not overstepping any class boundaries), was it you who took a surreptitious photograph of the Professor passed out and lying in pools of her own effluvia? It seems to have left scars that may never heal. You should be ashamed.

Trooper York said...

"So, Laslo (if my presumed familiarity is not overstepping any class boundaries), was it you who took a surreptitious photograph of the Professor passed out and lying in pools of her own effluvia?"

You should put on your glasses Rabel. That photo was actually a Kotex Sanitary napkin.

The Dude said...

Larry the homophobal
Wanted to take his brand global
His "wife" said "Start spreadin' the news"
And while you are at it, "Keep hatin' the Jews"

Just what sort of swill are they imbibing to turn into such neck-tatted alcoholic freaks, eh?

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

@ Amartel said...@ 8:53

Bagoh @12:57
Yes!



Yes! and This!

Lectures on my so-called emotional attachment to Ted Cruz (there isn't one) are hilarious coming from people who are so emotionally attached to Trump, they cannot see straight.