Democratic Party Won't Admit It's Become the Party of Wealth
By: Victor Davis Hansen
The democrat party is the party of the rich. They are the secular progressive bi coastal urban elites sneering down upon ordinary Americans with sheer contempt and condescending arrogance cheered on by their inner suburban limousine liberal friends. The GOP is now the multiracial working and middle class coalition.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Democratic Party Won't Admit It's Become the Party of Wealth
How often during the last year of wokeness have middle- and lower-class Americans listened to multimillionaires of all races and genders lecture them on their various pathologies and oppressions?
University presidents with million-dollar salaries virtue-signal on the cheap their own sort of "unearned white privilege."
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Meghan Markle and the Obamas, from their plush estates, indict Americans for their biases.
Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors Brignac decries the oppressive victimization she and others have suffered -- from one of her four recently acquired homes.
Do we need another performance-art sermon on America's innate unfairness from billionaire entertainers such as Beyonce, Jay-Z or Oprah Winfrey, or from multimillionaire Delta or Coca-Cola CEOs?
During the 1980s cultural war, the left's mantra was "race, class and gender." Occasionally we still hear of that trifecta, but the class part has increasingly disappeared. The neglect of class is ironic given that a number of recent studies conclude class differences are widening as never before.
Middle-class incomes among all races have stagnated, and family net worth has declined. Far greater percentages of rising incomes go to the already rich. Student debt, mostly a phenomenon of the middle and lower classes, has hit $1.7 trillion.
States such California have bifurcated into medieval-style societies. California's progressive coastal elites boast some of the highest incomes in the nation. But in the more conservative north and central interior, nearly a third of the population lives below the poverty line -- explaining why one of every three American welfare recipients lives in California.
California's heating, cooling, gasoline and housing costs are the highest in the continental United States. Most of these spiraling costs are attributable to polices embraced by an upper-class elite -- in Silicon Valley, Hollywood and marquee universities -- whose incomes shield them from the deleterious consequences of their utopian bromides. The poor and middle classes have no such insulation.
So why are we not talking about class?
First, we are watching historic changes in political alignment.
The two parties are switching class constituents. Some 65% of the Americans making more than $500,000 a year are Democrats, and 74% of those who earn less than $100,000 a year are Republicans, according to IRS statistics. Gone are the days of working people automatically voting Democratic, or Republicans being caricatured as a party of stockbrokers on golf courses.
By 2018, Democratic representatives were in control all 20 of the wealthiest congressional districts. In the recent presidential primaries and general election, 17 of the 20 wealthiest ZIP codes gave more money to Democratic candidates than to Republicans.
Increasingly, the Democrats are a bicoastal party of elites from corporate America, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, the media, universities, entertainment and professional sports. All have made out like bandits from globalization.
Democrats have lost much of their support from working-class whites, especially in the interior of the country. But they are also fast forfeiting the Hispanic middle class and beginning to lose solidarity among middle-class African Americans.
The Democratic Party does not wish to admit it has become the party of wealth. All too often its stale revolutionary speechifying sounds more like penance arising from guilt than genuine advocacy for middle-class citizens of all races.
The wealthy leftist elite has mastered the rhetoric of ridicule for the lower-middle classes, especially struggling whites. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden wrote off their political opponents as supposedly crude, superstitious and racist, smearing them as "clingers," "deplorables," irredeemables" and "chumps."
Class is fluid; race is immutable. So by fixating on race, the left believes that it can divide America into permanent victimizers and victims -- at a time when race and class are increasingly disconnecting.
The wealthy of all races are the loudest voices of the woke movement. Their frequent assumptions of "victimhood" are absurd.
Americans who struggle to pay soaring gas, food, energy and housing prices are berated for their "white privilege" by an array of well-paid academics, media elite and CEOs.
Note that the woke military is the brand of admirals, generals and retired top brass on corporate boards, not of the enlisted. It's multimillionaire CEOs who bark at the nation for their prejudices, not saleswomen or company truck drivers.
America is a plutocracy, not a genocracy. Wealth, not race, is the factor most likely to ensure someone power, influence and the good life.
In the pre-civil rights past, race was often fused to class, and the two terms were logically used interchangeably to cite oppression and inequality. But such a canard is fossilized. And so are those who desperately cling to it.
The more the elites scream their woke banalities, the more they seem to fear that they, not most Americans, are really the privileged, coddled and pampered ones -- and sometimes the victimizers.
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Today’s democrat party is the party of the very rich. They are the secular progressive bi coastal urban elites who are sneering down upon us ordinary Americans with utter contempt and sheer condescending arrogance, cheered on by their inner suburban limousine liberal friends. ALL of the 20 richest congressional districts are represented by democrats and the richest zip codes in America are democrat. The Republican Party is now the multiracial working and middle class coalition. We are the bitter clingers, the deplorables, and the chumps in elitist speak.
Interesting. That being the case, maybe Republicans should get on board with the Democrats’ desire to raise taxes on the highest earners.
I once thought the same thing but there’s always a catch. The highest 1-10% have lawyers and accountants and lots of loopholes and regulations to avoid direct impact as does the S&P 500 and other largest companies. These tax increases won’t affect them at all. The real targets are the upper middle class professional class as well as farmers, ranchers, and family/individually owned small business people and they will bear the brunt of the tax increases just as they did in blue cities and states during the lockdowns.
Wondered if someone would post this little gem. While it is a bit of dig at Democrats, it's also a clear warning to Republicans.
Bud light in a glass. Tonight we high class. Liberals can't relate. But Republicans better listen.
The swing of the two parties is ongoing. The democrats are the party of the elite and the rich as well as the party of the non working poor. The rich have abandoned the GOP and the GOP is embracing the working and lower middle class. The shift started with working class whites but is now spreading to religiously observant middle and working class Hispanic and Asian Americans as well as pro school choice pro police African Americans. While the big multi national corporations and their boards are no longer friends of the GOP family farmers, ranchers, and small businesses most certainly are. It was nice of you to post here. Most are on my other seed accusing a married African American woman married to a US soldier of being a Russian agent.
The Republican Party still has its share of snobs and elites. Neo-liberals are still far-left liberals, after all. Fixing the Republican Party will take time. But the Republican Party is moving in the right direction. Thank Trump for that.
The Democratic Party, on the other hand, is becoming a party of the affluent and poor. In liberal-speak, the Democrats are becoming a party of the privileged and disadvantaged. That's a source of natural conflict that has divided cultures, societies, and nations throughout human history. Needless to say, Democrats will choose money over virtue; history will repeat itself.
The middle of the middle class is the foundation of capitalism. The work isn't glamorous or fair but must be done for capitalism to work. Without the middle of the middle class a market economy cannot function without government support. And that wouldn't be capitalism. At least one of the political parties needs to focus attention on the middle of the middle class or the United States will collapse.
Well said. We are working on minimizing the impact of the establishment globalist elite within our party and replacing them with Tea Party/Trump America first populists.
The higher education level one reaches the more likely to make a good living and to vote Democratic!
The more brainwashed and elitist the more democrat. Republicans are a majority among those with a high school diploma, some college, AA degree and undergraduate degree. Democrats are dominant in the high school drop out and post graduate college categories.
I'm sure that the religious Christians running things in Salem back when they were still burning witches would have said the same. "Brainwashing" by filling your head with facts and science will only confuse a good young Christian from believing in witches, demons and Satan, so burn the educators!
We saw anti religion show its true nature and reach a new pre communism low during the French Revolution.
If it's true that the "filthy rich" abandoned the Republican Party for the Democratic one, maybe they had good reason to. I would have, had I been "filthy rich", because maybe also I have principles and I'm not a fool.
Since I am lower middle class/working class and have principles and I’m not a fool, I left the democrat party long ago and now more of us are joining in that move.
As I've often said here "Different strokes for different folks" - maybe that's what makes the world go round. Maybe that's one of the reasons why I oppose people of one nation telling people of another nation how to run their show.
So you agree that Canadians should never tell Americans what to do and Vice versa?
LOL. Guilty as charged. Chalk one up for XXJefferson, although I think my comments have been to tell others what NOT to do, rather than what to do.