American politics has caught the British disease
19th July 2010
Suddenly the phenomenon of class resentment is a live political issue. Some commentators describe it as the Democrats’ “middle-class problem”, which means that there has been a spectacular collapse of support for the administration among the core blue-collar voters who should constitute its base.
Liberal politics is now – over there as much as here – a form of social snobbery. To express concern about mass immigration, or reservations about the Obama healthcare plan, is unacceptable in bien-pensant circles because this is simply not the way educated people are supposed to think. It follows that those who do think (and talk) this way are small-minded bigots, rednecks, oiks, or whatever your local code word is for “not the right sort”.
Indeed, American politics is looking more like that of a Third-World kleptocracy, with Obama and his cronies ushering in our own sort of waBenzi.
July 19th, 2010 at 10:50
Kleptocracy, maybe. More like kakistocracy.