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February 2004: A commercial airs on Iowa television in which the then-front-runner for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, Howard Dean, was blasted for being the choice of the cultural elites: a "tax hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show" who had no business trying to talk to the plain folk of Iowa.

The commercial was sponsored by the Club for Growth, a Washington-based organization dedicated to hooking up pro-business rich people with pro-business politicians. The organization is made up of anti-government economists, prominent men of means and big thinkers of the late New Economy, celebrated geniuses of the sort that spent the past 10 years describing the low-tax, deregulated economy as though it were the second coming of Christ. In other words, the people who thought they saw Jesus in the ever-ascending Nasdaq, the pundits who worked themselves into a lather singing the praises of new billionaires, the economists who made a living by publicly insisting that privatization and deregulation were the mandates of history itself are now running television commercials denouncing the "elite."

That's the mystery of the United States, circa 2004. Thanks to the rightward political shift of the past 30 years, wealth is today concentrated in fewer hands than it has been since the 1920s; workers have less power over the conditions under which they toil than ever before in our lifetimes; and the corporation has become the most powerful actor in our world. Yet that rightward shift – still going strong to this day – sells itself as a war against elites, a righteous uprising of the little guy against an obnoxious upper class.

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Until the American Left decides to take a long, unprejudiced look at deepest America, at the kind of people who think voting for George Bush constitutes a blow against the elite, they are fated to continue their slide to oblivion.

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I still think that Bush will get a second term. At the very least, the Americans will continue their march toward Fascism under the banner of democracy.

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For Europe and the world the failure is costlier still, dooming them to the wars and the policy impositions of an America they refuse to understand.

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The familiar saying has it "History is written by the victors." I like to reply, "If it's written by the victors" -- that is, to serve their interests -- "it's not history, but propaganda."

[ 25 March 2004: Message edited by: 'lance ]

First of all, I don't think the collapse of working-class consciousness in the face of right-wing "populist" demagoguery is confined to the USA. Where do you think the Reform Party got all its votes from? The same farmers and white male workers who used to be part of the CCF farmer-labour alliance. You might not want to be so smug in labelling this as "some other countries problem." (And even if it was a strictly US problem, you would still be pretty screwed because you're located right next to us).

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Originally posted by robbie_dee:
I think you folks are missing a few things from the article.

First of all, I don't think the collapse of working-class consciousness in the face of right-wing "populist" demagoguery is confined to the USA. Where do you think the Reform Party got all its votes from? The same farmers and white male workers who used to be part of the CCF farmer-labour alliance. You might not want to be so smug in labelling this as "some other countries problem." (And even if it was a strictly US problem, you would still be pretty screwed because you're located right next to us).

Also, and more importantly, the article isn't just an attack on the big bad Right for their disingenuous (and effective) rhetoric. It is also a critique of the Left for its failure to respond. The Democratic Party has, to a significant extent, become a party of latte-sipping Northeastern urban liberals. They've lost touch with a lot of their rural and blue collar base - the kind of people who helped elect FDR and Kennedy. And to some degree, the NDP is grappling with the same problems in Canada. So what are we going to do about it?

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Yes, you are right. And yes, we would be screwed. Canada is in peril of becoming a satellite state; and there are plenty of Canadians who think that would be a good idea. Does Vichy ring any bells?

I'm not being smug about this. I'm downright paranoid about it. I've been watching America march to a nasty drumbeat for a very long time.

[ 25 March 2004: Message edited by: Cougyr ]

The National Citizens' Coalition loves you - ha! ha! ha!

I think there are a variety of reasons for a right wing appeal against the 'Liberal elites'. The most modern argument is over some of the social issues.

I'm not sure in the U.S what the term refers to "the Eastern Liberal establishment elite" that the Republican party mouthpieces constantly complain about. I think the term refers back to the 1950's or something, probably when Adlai Stevenson was running for President (though he is from Ohio). It would be interesting to see if modern polling in the U.S would show if the phrase has any relevance with U.S voters anymore.

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This is something particularly intersting in British Columbia, where we have a lot of middle class and lower middle class populists who have traditionally voted with the NDP, but swung to the Reform Party in the 1990's.

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