It boils down to this.
As a midterm election year looms, I find myself trying to suss out what it is that has the left and the right at each other’s throats. And I think I may have at least partially figured it out.
When you render out the hyperbolic language and the sophomoric name-calling, you begin realizing that the entire social argument of the past 60 years boils down to membership in the middle class.
The middle class is an American invention. Prior to this country’s establishment, the world consisted of a tiny proportion of any given population that was of noble birth and unimaginably rich, a very slightly larger proportion of a given population that was well to do by virtue of belonging to what came to be called the “merchant class,” and then pretty much everyone else. Those in the “everyone else” cohort lived in grinding, hopeless poverty that was all but inescapable regardless of talent or effort.
It was the success of the American experiment in individual sovereignty that unleashed the creative human forces that placed affluence within the reach of the average guy.
Two things are eternally true. First, poverty is the default state of mankind. We are all born naked and penniless. Second, only a vanishingly small percentage of us will ever attain wealth on the scale of a Rockefeller, Carnegie, Gates, Perot or Musk.
But under our system the middle class is broadly attainable. For this discussion, membership in the middle class means that one has money to meet life’s inescapable needs – that is food, clothing and shelter – with money left over for life’s pleasures, such as entertainment, hobbies, vacation trips and a comfortable old age.
Modern America’s first mistake was that it for too long denied the black descendants of 18th and 19th century slaves the same opportunities to enter the middle class that the descendants of the Europeans who migrated here enjoyed.
We’re still paying for that mistake.
That led to the next mistake. We tried to atone via government entitlement programs. For this discussion let’s give liberals who backed the 1960s-era War on Poverty credit for their good intentions. Their goal was to get minorities “caught up” quickly and that “temporary” welfare payments would provide a “leg up.”
But what’s obvious to the discerning eye yet remains either unlearned or willfully unrecognized on the left is that dependency on government forecloses access to the middle class. Dependency and affluence are mutually exclusive conditions.
Tens of millions of Americans receive billions of dollars in government transfer payments and are nevertheless resentful and unhappy.
Our leftist ruling class has mastered the art of leveraging that resentment into votes. Advancing one’s political ambitions by suffocating animal instinct and native creativity by convincing able-bodied people that they don’t have a chance is the very pinnacle of cynicism.
And until the left comes around (not likely), or those on the bottom rungs start figuring out on their own that they’re being used (possible, see 2024 election demographic data), our politics will continue to be fraught.
Paul, thank you for another outstanding column, thoughtful and very much to the point. I recently included the following in our company’s weekly newsletter that goes out to 24,000+ customers. I hope what I’ve written sheds further light on the circumstances shaping our nation’s future
Thank God for the Filthy Rich
It has never bothered me that another man has more money than I do, but it has always bothered me that the government always wants more of my money.
It is far better that an individual, or individuals working in a corporation, control the nation’s wealth rather than the government.
It matters little if a man acquires wealth by his own effort or by inheritance. Either way, he will grow, keep, and pass on that wealth only if he makes good and wise decisions. If he is profligate or careless, he will lose that wealth to others who are less so. But no matter how wise or foolish he may be, he can never consume all that he has or even a tiny fraction thereof.
All he can be is the custodian of his wealth. For example, no man can consume more food than another. In other things as well, a man of wealth consumes very little when that consumption is measured against millions or billions of dollars.
At worst, a fool’s wealth passes into other hands. At best, privately managed wealth compounds and produces modern marvels that render our lives far better.
Where would the world be without billionaires like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, and so many others like them?
Now imagine our nation’s wealth managed by the likes of Tim Walz.
A brilliant piece, Buddy. Thanks for sharing.
Hello Paul,
I think you missed this one a bit. The left is not interested in atoning for past sins. They are political race baiters. Using race as a base for creating voters. It they were truly atoning for the past, they would be extremely concerned about black-on-black crime, 92% in fact. Crickets from the left on this issue. This is a political war, and they care nothing about casualties, winning is everything!
Marty, you are confusing the Democrats of today with the Democrats of the 1960s. They are not the same. It is those 1960s Democrats that I am willing to consider crediting with the good intentions of atoning for past sins. They pursued that atonement via their successful (though misguided) promotion of the War on Poverty.
If we can manage to straighten out the problems with voting and voter ID and allow people to trust the system, maybe more will turn out to vote. Then we have to convince those same able-bodied people that they DO have a chance, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the color of your skin or your gender. What do you know how to do that I would be willing to pay you for?