Republicans thought they found a working class hero to replace "Joe The Plumber" from 2008.
Democrats thought if Republicans liked him, he must be bad. And evangelical. And racist. And Q-Anon-friendly.
Both sides revealed why frustrated working class Americans are open to angry populist messages from either party, or neither party.
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| Oliver Anthony |
Oliver Anthony's song, Rich Men North of Richmond, went viral. The leadoff question in the GOP debate invited candidates to comment on why the song resonated with Americans. Anthony says he was misunderstood. He said he was mostly angry with rich business executives north of Richmond, not the bad choices made by working people. He said he mostly liked Democrats, but they were attacking him and Republicans were praising him. He said his real target was privileged, out of touch, oppressive elites.
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| Trigoboff |
Guest Post by Michael Trigoboff
We have a “two-party system” in this country, but the two parties now represent different segments of the American elite. Republicans are the party of financial elites. Democrats, who used to be for “the little guy“, are now the party of cultural elites. Neither party represents normal, non-elite Americans.
This has opened up a huge, gaping space in our politics for populism. It’s why voters who do not have a college degree are gravitating away from the Democrats and toward the Republicans, including members of minority groups who the Democrats thought they owned. It’s what gave Donald Trump the opportunity to take over the Republican Party from financial elites like low-energy Jeb!.
When enough people are fed up with the elites, votes will matter more than money or cultural clout. Republicans will not be able to spend their way out of being engulfed by the populist wave. Democrats will not be able to use their cultural clout to scare people away from populism with words like “deplorable”.
Eventually, one party is going to ditch its elites and line up with the populists. Right now, it looks like it’s going to be the Republicans. But it could be the Democrats, if they’re capable of catching a clue; if not, they’ll never know what hit them.
In the meantime, populism is starting to develop its own cultural messages. This song is one of the latest:
Rich Men North of Richmond
I've been sellin' my soul, workin' all day
Overtime hours for bullshit pay
So I can sit out here and waste my life away
Drag back home and drown my troubles away
It's a damn shame what the world's gotten to
For people like me and people like you
Wish I could just wake up and it not be true
But it is, oh, it is
Livin' in the new world
With an old soul
These rich men north of Richmond
Lord knows they all just wanna have total control
Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do
And they don't think you know, but I know that you do
'Cause your dollar ain't shit and it's taxed to no end
'Cause of rich men north of Richmond
I wish politicians would look out for miners
And not just minors on an island somewhere
Lord, we got folks in the street, ain't got nothin' to eat
And the obese milkin' welfare
Well, God, if you're 5-foot-3 and you're 300 pounds
Taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds
Young men are puttin' themselves six feet in the ground
'Cause all this damn country does is keep on kickin' them down
[Note: To get daily delivery of this blog to your email go to: https://petersage.substack.com and subscribe. The blog is free and always will be.]
13 comments:
It used to be the commies that were responsible for all the turmoil in our country. Now it’s the elites. For those who would like more information, Alex Jones has a book out about the global elite’s international conspiracy to enslave humanity and all life on the planet.
9.9 times out of 10, I avoid reading this person's blogs and comments.
The book "Angry White Men" by Michael Kimmel discusses this phenomenon. Kimmel is a white, male, Jewish sociology professor.
Alex Jones not withstanding, at the rate we are destroying the ecosphere, there won't be much for the "elites" to enslave.
Years ago, in a conversation with one of those very rich "elites", he made his position clear; when this planet was sucked dry, humanity could just move on to the next one . I assumed then, and still believe, by "humanity" he meant himself and his cronies who were and are in the 1% of the population controlling 80 or 90% of the "wealth" around the globe.
Yes, it’s true: the root of the problem is them fudge rounds. Too bad for the Ds that ‘the coalition of the ascendant ‘ is downwardly mobile...
Invoking Alex Jones is yet another way to tag the populists as “deplorable“, a tactic that worked so well for Hillary.
As I said in my essay, the Democrats could catch a clue about this. I hope they do; I would like to return to what used to be my party.
But the Hillary tactic ain’t it.
Newsflash: Hillary won the popular vote. You can't get more populist than that.
Hillary won the popular vote, but she did not become president. Her base was not composed of voters who would be considered “populist“ by any normal definition of the term.
The presidency in this country is decided by the Electoral College. References to the popular vote are irrelevant wishful thinking
Bumper stickers common in Grants Pass during spotted owl controversy’
EARTH FIRST. WE'LL LOG THE OTHER PLANETS LATER.
Mike, that implies that every president ever elected with a majority vote is a populist. I don't think so. Better check the dictionary, sir!
Populism is a range of political stances that emphasize the idea of "the people" and millions more of “the people” voted for Hillary, but that’s neither here nor there.
Ales Jones and Michael Trigoboff’s elitist conspiracy theory doesn’t actually explain anything, but blames some nebulous elites for our problems. So much for personal responsibility. Michael says they drove “normal” Americans into Trump’s cult and warns that Democrats better line up with them or “they’ll never know what hit them.”
Trump and his supporters are sabotaging our republic. To line up with them, we’d have to be as crazy as they are. Is this really the best Peter can do?
A claim that I believe the same things as Alex Jones has no basis in anything I ever said. It’s hard to see it as anything other than an insult masquerading as commentary.
Our elites didn’t “drive“ normal people anywhere; our elites ignored them and their interests, leaving the gaping hole in our politics that I referred to in my essay. That includes the elites who run the Democratic Party, and who will run it straight into the ground in 2024 if they continue to focus on boutique cultural concerns and ignore the people they claim to represent.
Dismissing around 40% of the American electorate as “crazy“ is not a viable political strategy; you’d have to be crazy yourself to think it would work.
If 40% represents the number of American supporters of trump, I think they’re certifiably crazy, or-close enough-psychotic (out of touch with reality). I think, but am uncertain, that psychotic, in the crazy sense, refers to people who’ve been exposed to reality, whereas some trumpites are apparently insulated from reality by being stuck on the pretend reality of trump and Faux.
Pointing out that people who support Trump are crazy has nothing to do with political strategy, it's just a fact. It doesn't matter what we call them, because nothing's going to change their minds (to use the term loosely. They're impervious to facts or they wouldn't want a criminal psychopath for president. Or maybe that's why they do want him, which would be even worse.
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