{"id":8621,"date":"2015-08-26T11:30:26","date_gmt":"2015-08-26T18:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=8621"},"modified":"2015-08-26T08:34:04","modified_gmt":"2015-08-26T15:34:04","slug":"donald-trump-and-the-other-class-warfare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/donald-trump-and-the-other-class-warfare\/","title":{"rendered":"Donald Trump and the Other Class Warfare"},"content":{"rendered":"

When democratic masses tire of being condescended to.<\/em><\/h3>\n

by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/ FrontPage Magazine<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Photo
Photo via FrontPage Magazine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The rise and continuing popularity of Donald Trump reminds us that \u201cclass warfare\u201d is an eternal constant of democracies, for as Plato said, every city is in fact two cities, \u201cone the city of the poor, the other of the rich; these are at war with one another.\u201d But possession of wealth is not the only factor in this eternal conflict between the few and the many. The masses of course resent the elites\u2019 greater wealth, but even more they dislike the assumption of superior wisdom and virtue that elites have always claimed as justifications for their status. It is this galling assumption and the anger it arouses in people that Donald Trump has brilliantly exploited.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Many Republicans correctly see that this popular anger is usually directed against progressives. The typical Democrat reflexively assumes that he is smarter and better educated, thinks more \u201cscientifically,\u201d and has more cultivated tastes than the masses in flyover country who cling bitterly to their guns and religion, as the President once said. All true, but many in the Republican elite often display the same attitudes. We saw this in some of the responses to Trump\u2019s remarks on immigration. Lindsey Graham called Trump a \u201cwrecking ball,\u201d and Jeb Bush said Trump\u2019s remarks were \u201cunfortunate\u201d and advised, \u201cWe must have a more civil policy debate in this country.\u201d In other words, it wasn\u2019t the truth of Trump\u2019s remarks that mattered, but their d\u00e9class\u00e9 <\/em>tone. Similarly, John McCain has called Tea Partiers and Trump followers \u201ccrazies\u201d and \u201cwacko-birds.\u201d The implication is that social inferiors and ignoramuses are meddling in the business of their betters.<\/p>\n

The people may be \u201cuninformed,\u201d as faux conservative columnist David Brooks said in explaining Trump\u2019s popularity. But they know when they are being condescended to, and they\u2019re good at detecting when a leader supposedly on their side behaves as though decorum and elite solidarity are more important than truth and principle. John McCain provides another example. In 2012 he attacked Congressman Michele Bachmann and four\u00a0other Congressmen for raising questions about Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin\u2019s family connections to the jihadist Muslim Brotherhood. From the floor of the Senate McCain blasted the \u201cunwarranted and unfounded attack on an honorable woman, a dedicated American, and a loyal public servant\u201d whom he considers a \u201cfriend\u201d attacked \u201cwithout concern for fact or fairness.\u201d<\/p>\n

To many conservatives, it seemed that elite inside-the-Beltway bonhomie was more important to McCain than determining whether or not his word \u201cunwarranted\u201d was just begging the question. Nor did he seem interested in whether or not it was a bit dangerous to have the chief officer of our foreign policy establishment, the Secretary of State, so close to someone intimately linked to an ideology inimical to this country\u2019s security and interests, particularly at a time when the administration was advancing the cause of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.<\/p>\n

That sort of political good-old-pols-club solidarity is what angers many people. They are also sick of the carefully parsed and qualified and nuanced and poll-tested statements that are yet another device for avoiding the truth and hiding true motives. They sense that \u201cinsiders\u201d with their bespoke suits and college degrees and smooth rhetoric are patronizing them and sacrificing their interests and principles. They get that the constant calls for \u201ccivility\u201d and \u201cdecorum\u201d are camouflage for the grubby pursuit of personal power and advancement, and a disdain for the common folk. Perhaps that\u2019s why Trump\u2019s dismissal of McCain\u2019s status as a war-hero did not exact the price one would have expected, given the high regard Americans have for veterans. Perhaps many people figured that McCain had for too long made a career out of waving the bloody shirt rather than challenging the progressive status quo bankrupting the country and endangering our security and interests.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Or take the establishment Republicans who dismiss the disorder and crime created by illegal immigration, and call for \u201ccomprehensive immigration reform.\u201d Many can see that this \u201creform\u201d will be a reprise of the 1986 \u201creform\u201d\u2013\u2013all amnesty and no border enforcement\u2013\u2013 that helped create today\u2019s mess. A lot of ordinary people who live among concentrations of illegal aliens have to put up with a level of daily crime and disorder that well-heeled Republicans never experience. These people resent the implications that they are \u201cxenophobes\u201d and \u201cnativists\u201d harboring racist sentiments. They see a problem that needs fixing, but all that many in their party give them is the same old \u201cnation of immigrants\u201d bromides, rhetorical cover for ensuring a steady supply of cheap labor for capitalist cronies. So why should we be surprised that Trump\u2019s blunt talk on immigration struck such a chord, especially when followed by several murders of Americans at the hands of felonious illegal aliens allowed to roam free?<\/p>\n

Finally, the political elite\u2019s deference to the media is yet another sign to many that Republican politicians belong to the same club of insiders that includes the D.C. press corps. Many people are sick of Republicans preemptively cringing before reporters who are so obviously on the side of progressives, and who never subject Democrats to the same level of scrutiny and aggressive questioning. That\u2019s why Trump\u2019s followers like him\u2013\u2013he shows obvious scorn for the media, even Fox News. He doesn\u2019t buy the media\u2019s nonsense about being \u201cobjective\u201d purveyors of news or \u201cwatchdogs\u201d of the public weal rather than the partisan hacks most of them are. One cannot imagine Trump letting Candy Crowley blatantly help out a debate opponent the way Mitt Romney let her bail out Obama during their 2012 debate.<\/p>\n

Whether these perceptions are true or fair is not the point. Democratic politics in an age dominated 24\/7 by the visual more than the verbal is mostly built on perceptions that become a political reality. Just look at the outsized reputation of John F. Kennedy, a confection not of achievement as much as marketing, or that of Obama, completely a creation of collective racial neuroses and perceptions disconnected from the reality of the man\u2019s mediocre achievements. Trump gets that, and he knows that the more the elites call him \u201cvulgar\u201d the more a lot of people will like him and perceive him as a foe of the elites. He \u201ctells it like it is,\u201d as the clich\u00e9 goes, and so appears more genuine and honest, a plain-talking regular guy.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s willingness to brutally slap down the pretensions of the elite establishment makes his wealth irrelevant. Indeed, his billions endear him even more. In this Trump reminds me of the aristocrat Alcibiades of ancient Athens, who bragged about his lavish spending, understanding that the masses often will forget their envy of wealth if a leader turns against his own class and their arrogant assumption of superiority.<\/p>\n

Since the rise of the Tea Party this traditional dynamic of democratic politics has defined the Republican Party. Senator Ted Cruz has been the most visible vessel of this anti-elite sentiment, calling for strong legislative action rather than for nostrums about \u201cbipartisanship\u201d and \u201creaching across the aisle,\u201d which many see as fancy talk for the collusion of elites from both parties in keeping the Federal Leviathan well-fed. But Trump has greater advantages\u2013\u2013the independence of private wealth, high name recognition from his years on television, and a lack of verbal nuance and hair-splitting that delights the masses, who since the time of Athenian comedy have enjoyed seeing the pretensions and arrogance of the elite subjected to scorn and insult.<\/p>\n

Whether tapping into this ancient impulse can carry Trump to the nomination, let alone the presidency, is another matter. But the Republican Party had better take heed of the anti-elitist sentiments that have always roiled the democratic masses. By election day next year Republicans will have controlled Congress for two years, and they\u2019d better have something more to show for it than a bipartisan trade agreement and endless appearances on Fox News and Meet the Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When democratic masses tire of being condescended to. by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/ FrontPage Magazine The rise and continuing popularity of Donald Trump reminds us that \u201cclass warfare\u201d is an eternal constant of democracies, for as Plato said, every city is in fact two cities, \u201cone the city of the poor, the other of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[842,22,187],"tags":[1012,997],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-2f3","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":772,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-stupid-party\/","url_meta":{"origin":8621,"position":0},"title":"The Stupid Party","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 20, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thronton FrontPage Magazine The presidency of Barack Obama has established once and for all that modern liberalism is now the stupid party. Very little of liberal thought these days represents anything fresh or new, but rather comprises what Lionel Trilling once reduced conservatism to: \u201cirritable mental gestures\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1960,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wall-streets-disgruntles-utopians\/","url_meta":{"origin":8621,"position":1},"title":"Wall Street’s Disgruntles Utopians","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 11, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. 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