Parallels but also differences

From Democrats’ Hidden Civil War by Rod Dreher.

I have mentioned in the past the parallels between Tea Party candidate David Brat's upset of Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the primary of June 2014 and the Democratic Socialists of America candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's upset of Democratic Party heavyweight Caucus Chair Joe Crowley. I have mentioned this in the context of my contention that contra the mainstream media narrative that we have increasing polarization between the right and the left, that what we are actually seeing is a revolt of the masses against the incompetence and corruption of the Mandarin class, made up primarily of the media, politicians, academia, the entertainment industry, and federal/state government unions.

The traditional division between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party was that the Republican Party wanted to bring prosperity to all citizens through a low tax, low regulation, freedom-based, free-market approach while the Democratic Party wanted to bring prosperity to all citizens through a high tax, high regulation, state-managed and public policy determined approach.

Fair points of contention. However, from the 1980s onward the ability of the establishment of both parties began to look increasingly interchangeable, equally corrupt, and equally incompetent. Government establishment people and their Mandarins all prospered while the freedoms and prosperity of ordinary Americans stagnated and declined. From my perspective, the tensions are between the average Americans and their Mandarin class rather than between the noisy, but tiny, fringes of either party.

In both these upsets, party outsider's unseated seemingly unassailable party insiders. The barbarians displaced the Mandarins. I think one of the more pertinent aphorisms of the past hundred years for the current sea change is that of G.K. Chesterton:

The poor object to being governed badly, while the rich object to being governed at all.

There is another Chesterton quote which goes to the popular resentment of the disdain with which the Mandarin class views and addresses American citizens.

When men have a real explanation they explain it, eagerly and copiously and in common speech, as Huxley freely gave it when he thought he had it. When they have no explanation to offer, they give short dignified replies, disdainful of the ignorance of the multitude.

Dreher's article provides some additional information of which I was unaware and which puts a slight twist on the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez upset. The heart of the matter is the confusion and incoherence arising from the infusion of postmodernist mindset, especially the intersectionalist and critical race theory mindset into the Democratic Party over the past forty years.

Perhaps my comparison of the Eric Cantor and Joe Crowley upsets was too facile. Dreher points out:

What’s interesting to me is that on the GOP side, the outsider insurgents — Team Trump — captured the party, and forced the party establishment to go along. Now the Republican Party is firmly in the hands of Trump. Based on the Politico story, in the Democratic case, the outsider insurgents appear not to represent the base at all, but a highly energized portion of it. The more power they get, the more alienated the more socially conservative black and brown base may grow. What an interesting set of problems.

I'd put it slightly differently. The reform of the Republican party began much earlier in 2009 and was a largely uncoordinated grass roots movement of ordinary Americans seeking to improve the governance of the country by reforming one of the parties. There was a Tea Party movement but no centralized apparatus or establishment (which I think was one of its strengths - there was no target for the Mandarins to strike.)

Yes, Trump is now the visible figurehead of that reform but had there been no Tea Party, I don't think there would have been a Trump administration. He is a symptom of the revolt, not the cause of it. I don't think the Trump Team captured the Republican Party. There is no team Trump. The Republican Party was slowly but steadily, candidate-by-candidate, taken over by the diffused Tea Party representing the interests of the ordinary citizens. Trump is only succeeding because of their prior existence and because he is (aside from deficit spending) largely implementing their agenda of greater freedom, lower taxes, lower regulation, better justice, and better defense. He is working the prosperity agenda of ordinary Americans rather than the insider privilege agenda of the Mandarins and is seen to be doing so.

That clarity is probably much of the root cause of the Trump Derangement Syndrome being seen in the mainstream media and the rest of the Mandarin class. Trump, and the prosperity agenda for ordinary Americans, is a direct and existential threat to the privileges and sinecures of the Mandarin class. They have to destroy him or their privileges and sinecures evaporate.

Dreher is making an oblique point which I think is important and which I have not much distinguished. The Tea Party, without infrastructure or centralized leadership, executed a reverse takeover of an establishment party.

The Democratic Party "reform" has begun much later, with the rise of Bernie Sanders in 2016. The implication of Dreher's point is that this is not a reform of the Democratic Party by its base, as happened to the Republican Party, this is a factional fight within the Democratic Party for power. Legacy Obama faction is vying with legacy Clinton faction is vying with fringe Sanders faction. Where are the ordinary American interests being represented? Nowhere. And where are the ordinary Americans in the Democratic base? Moving to the Republicans.

Trump has been blessed with the incoherence, hysteria, and fanaticism of his opponents. But he is also a gambler. He has taken a series of big gambles which have almost all paid off, to the great benefit of ordinary Americans. But his propensity towards dramatic risks might still undo him.

But the real challenge is who will look after the interests of the average American. It is not the old establishments of either the Republican or Democratic parties. But the Tea Party reverse takeover seems pretty solid at this point. Whatever happens with Trump as an unexpected leader, I suspect the Republicans, if they stay focused on the prosperity agenda of ordinary Americans, will continue to thrive through the ordinary political vicissitudes.

I think the Democrats, and we do need a strong competing party, are at greater risk because right now, the battles are between their various vested interests in dividing a fixed/declining pie of insider privilege and no one seems focused on or caring about the prosperity of ordinary Americans.