Donald Trump and American Populism

From Michael Kazin, at Foreign Affairs, "Trump and American Populism: Old Whine, New Bottles":

Donald Trump is an unlikely populist. The Republican nominee for U.S. president inherited a fortune, boasts about his wealth and his many properties, shuttles between his exclusive resorts and luxury hotels, and has adopted an economic plan that would, among other things, slash tax rates for rich people like himself. But a politician does not have to live among people of modest means, or even tout policies that would boost their incomes, to articulate their grievances and gain their support. Win or lose, Trump has tapped into a deep vein of distress and resentment among millions of white working- and middle-class Americans.

Trump is hardly the first politician to bash elites and champion the interests of ordinary people. Two different, often competing populist traditions have long thrived in the United States. Pundits often speak of “left-wing” and “right-wing” populists. But those labels don’t capture the most meaningful distinction. The first type of American populist directs his or her ire exclusively upward: at corporate elites and their enablers in government who have allegedly betrayed the interests of the men and women who do the nation’s essential work. These populists embrace a conception of “the people” based on class and avoid identifying themselves as supporters or opponents of any particular ethnic group or religion. They belong to a broadly liberal current in American political life; they advance a version of “civic nationalism,” which the historian Gary Gerstle defines as the “belief in the fundamental equality of all human beings, in every individual’s inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and in a democratic government that derives its legitimacy from the people’s consent.”

Adherents of the second American populist tradition—the one to which Trump belongs—also blame elites in big business and government for under­mining the common folk’s economic interests and political liberties. But this tradition’s definition of “the people” is narrower and more ethnically restrictive. For most of U.S. history, it meant only citizens of European heritage—“real Americans,” whose ethnicity alone afforded them a claim to share in the country’s bounty. Typically, this breed of populist alleges that there is a nefarious alliance between evil forces on high and the unworthy, dark-skinned poor below—a cabal that imperils the interests and values of the patriotic (white) majority in the middle. The suspicion of an unwritten pact between top and bottom derives from a belief in what Gerstle calls “racial nationalism,” a conception of “America in ethnoracial terms, as a people held together by common blood and skin color and by an inherited fitness for self-government.”

Both types of American populists have, from time to time, gained political influence. Their outbursts are not random. They arise in response to real grievances: an economic system that favors the rich, fear of losing jobs to new immigrants, and politicians who care more about their own advancement than the well-being of the majority. Ultimately, the only way to blunt their appeal is to take those problems seriously...

Well, good luck with that.

Keep reading.

Ben Stein: Donald Trump Must Go (VIDEO)

Donald Trump won't go, but he's going to be harangued about it for a month anyway.

Here's Ben Stein, at CBS Sunday Morning, "Ben Stein: Trump Must Go."

Ethan Couch's Mother Appears in Court for Arraignment Hearing (VIDEO)

Following-up from yesterday, "'Affluenza' Teen's Mom Arrives in Texas (VIDEO)."

Now, watch, at Fox News 4 Dallas, "$1 million bond for Tonya Couch."

And at the Dallas Morning News, "Affidavit: Tonya Couch withdrew $30,000, told Ethan’s father he would never see them again, before fleeing to Mexico."

Looks like she was getting ready to chill for awhile down there in Mexico.

'Affluenza' Teen's Mom Arrives in Texas (VIDEO)

At the Dallas Morning News, "'Affluenza' teen's mother held in Tarrant County, seeks bail reduction to $15,000."



PREVIOUSLY: "Prison: A Sure Cure for 'Affluenza' (VIDEO)."

Prison: A Sure Cure for 'Affluenza' (VIDEO)

From Debra Saunders, at RCP:

In 2013, Americans learned about a new epidemic -- affluenza. As psychologist G. Dick Miller explained the phenomenon, children of wealthy parents are taught not the golden rule but "we have the gold, we make the rules." The unsympathetic carrier of the affliction -- Ethan Couch, Miller's client, then 16 -- pleaded guilty in 2013 to manslaughter charges after he killed four innocent people in a drunken driving accident. Prosecutors recommended that Couch serve 20 years in prison. The sentencing judge said she was not moved by the "affluenza" defense, but nonetheless, she chose to sentence the son of privilege to 10 years of drug- and alcohol-free probation, as well as a stint in a rehabilitation center.

"You're basically saying that bad character is a defense or at least a mitigation to a criminal case," said Kent Scheidegger of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation.

The lesson of the success of the "affluenza" defense is: If you think you have so much money that the law does not apply to you, you may be right.

Sometime after Couch emerged from a pricey Southern California rehab clinic known for offering equine therapy, yoga and martial arts instruction, Couch and his mother, Tonya, 48, headed to Mexico, whence young Couch missed a Dec. 10 appointment with his probation officer.

The pair took off after a video that showed young Couch playing beer pong went viral; drinking is a violation of his probation terms. Bristling at the young man's light sentence for an offense that left four dead, prosecutors have been trying to move Couch's case to the adult criminal justice system, where probation violations invite tougher consequences, when he turns 19 in April. So the Couches went for the border -- after they threw themselves a going-away party.

This week, Mexican authorities detained mother and son -- who had changed their appearance. Whereas Ethan Couch may have to do up to four months for violating juvenile probation when he is returned to Texas, Tonya Couch faces two to 10 years if convicted on a felony charge of hindering apprehension.

The Couch family's arrogance is so offensive that most readers, no doubt, are rooting for the harshest sentence possible for mother and son. Ethan's defense team flaunted its belief that the poor little rich kid shouldn't have to go to prison because he was a poor little rich kid. Few would call the outcome justice...

More.

And at LAT, "Texas 'affluenza' teen is fighting deportation from Mexico; mother arrives in L.A.," and "'Affluenza' teen and his mom were tripped up in Mexico by ordering pizza, officials say."

'Emin advanced her career with media-friendly drunken antics, and by cozying up to power players, rather than making worthwhile art. She made a name for herself by behaving as a kind of pandering clown for the glitterati, a predictable freak show for our would-be ruling class, feeding into the establishment’s most precious clichés...'

This is interesting, at the Remodern Review, "The Doublethink Strategy of the Cultural Elitists":

If you don’t understand the desired outcome, the actions make no sense.

One of the most controversial and least talented artists of the global art scene routinely receives the full force of establishment institutional support, including from a supposedly conservative government.

Tracey Emin is a notorious figure in England. She is an icon of the Conceptual Art movement that has done so much to destroy the credibility of elitist culture for anyone who has a life outside of the Postmodern cocoon.

Emin’s an artist who can’t draw; naturally the powers that be named her Professor of Drawing at London’s prestigious Royal Academy of the Arts.

*****

Once you realize the arrogant ruling class believes tearing down the traditions and standards of Western civilization will cement their grasp on unaccountable power, the promotion of Emin as the pinnacle of artistic achievement becomes understandable. Hyping soulless, unskilled art has a toxic, weakening effect on society as a whole. Conceptual art is a tool of oppression.

RTWT.

Via Instapundit.

Bill Clinton: Evil Republithugs 'trying to get you to check your brain at the door...'

Hillary Clinton was in Iowa yesterday for the Tom Harkin steak fry, and the only people fooled by Hillary's "I haven't decided on a run yet" lies are the slavering journalist following her around like puppies.

And of course, Bill "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" Clinton was on hand to dispense timely attacks on the Republicans. It's going to take an awful lot to convince voters that a Hillary presidency won't be a third term of Barack Obama, but with big Bill on the hustings there'll be plenty of clown show gags to provide distractions. I mean really, the GOP wants you to check your brain at the door? I'd say that's what the country's been doing for the last six years of "hope and change." But then, Bill Clinton didn't inhale either. Remember, a sucker's born every minute and the Democrats are counting on it.

At the Hill, "Bill Clinton: Republicans 'trying to get you to check your brain at the door'."

The Emerging American Junta

At Director Blue, "AMERICAN JUNTA: An Illustrated Tale of Societal Decline."

'Officer Bledsoe, meet the Streisand Effect...'

At Instapundit, "KNOW YOUR PLACE, PEASANT! Man ordered to take down police officer’s name and picture from Internet."

Yep, the video's here.

Washington's Ruling Class Orphans Millions of Voters

Angelo Codevilla updates his theory of America's morally bankrupt politics of the ruling class.

At Forbes, "As Country Club Republicans Link Up With The Democratic Ruling Class, Millions Of Voters Are Orphaned":

On January 1, 2013 one third of Republican congressmen, following their leaders, joined with nearly all Democrats to legislate higher taxes and more subsidies for Democratic constituencies. Two thirds voted no, following the people who had elected them. For generations, the Republican Party had presented itself as the political vehicle for Americans whose opposition to ever-bigger government financed by ever-higher taxes makes them a “country class.”  Yet modern Republican leaders, with the exception of the Reagan Administration, have been partners in the expansion of government, indeed in the growth of a government-based “ruling class.” They have relished that role despite their voters. Thus these leaders gradually solidified their choice to no longer represent what had been their constituency, but to openly adopt the identity of junior partners in that ruling class. By repeatedly passing bills that contradict the identity of Republican voters and of the majority of Republican elected representatives, the Republican leadership has made political orphans of millions of Americans. In short, at the outset of 2013 a substantial portion of America finds itself un-represented, while Republican leaders increasingly represent only themselves.

By the law of supply and demand, millions of Americans, (arguably a majority) cannot remain without representation. Increasingly the top people in government, corporations, and the media collude and demand submission as did the royal courts of old. This marks these political orphans as a “country class.” In 1776 America’s country class responded to lack of representation by uniting under the concept: “all men are created equal.” In our time, its disparate sectors’ common sentiment is more like: “who the hell do they think they are?”

The ever-growing U.S. government has an edgy social, ethical, and political character. It is distasteful to a majority of persons who vote Republican and to independent voters, as well as to perhaps one fifth of those who vote Democrat. The Republican leadership’s kinship with the socio-political class that runs modern government is deep. Country class Americans have but to glance at the Media to hear themselves insulted from on high as greedy, racist, violent, ignorant extremists. Yet far has it been from the Republican leadership to defend them. Whenever possible, the Republican Establishment has chosen candidates for office – especially the Presidency – who have ignored, soft-pedaled or given mere lip service to their voters’ identities and concerns.

Thus public opinion polls confirm that some two thirds of Americans feel that government is “them” not “us,” that government has been taking the country in the wrong direction, and that such sentiments largely parallel partisan identification: While a majority of Democrats feel that officials who bear that label represent them well, only about a fourth of Republican voters and an even smaller proportion of independents trust Republican officials to be on their side. Again: While the ruling class is well represented by the Democratic Party, the country class is not represented politically – by the Republican Party or by any other. Well or badly, its demand for representation will be met.

Representation is the distinguishing feature of democratic government. To be represented, to trust that one’s own identity and interests are secure and advocated in high places, is to be part of the polity. In practice, any democratic government’s claim to the obedience of citizens depends on the extent to which voters feel they are party to the polity. No one doubts that the absence, loss, or perversion of that function divides the polity sharply between rulers and ruled.

Continue reading.

And then check Gateway Pundit, "Rush Limbaugh: “For First Time in My Life, I’m Ashamed of My Country” (Video)."

And the introduction at this video is excellent (although you're on your own after that), from Greta Van Susteren, "Manufactured Mess? - Rush Limbaugh Says Sequester Crisis Is Bogus."