A Matter Of Class

The media cultists and pundits, whose duty it is to explain the doings of the world to a much more simple-minded citizenry, are having a hard time translating the Second Coming of Trump in a way that they are comfortable with. It was not hard for them the first time around. It is never hard for them to talk down to us, knowing we will never quite grasp the insight they patiently but condescendingly share. I believe that they had in their collective mind visions of Andrew Jackson’s first inauguration, which saw a wash of back-woods types end up partying in the White House in their dirty shirts and muddy boots. But for fear that we common types were not well-read enough to know the reference, they just stuck with crude, rude and Russian collusion.

This time it is much harder to discount the election results as a stunning, one-off upset due to right-wing trickery, some easily fooled serfs in backward fly-over territory and, of course, Russian “disinformation”. There was, of course, no whiskey-fueled trashing of the White House as in Jackson’s time. As before, formal balls stretched well into the night.

This time the confused pundit element will try and give a false air of acceptance while still trying to decide how those of the “working class” could have deserted so dramatically the patricians of both political parties. There will continue to be articles written and strategy sessions held, based mostly on understanding and appealing to all the perceived “classes,” especially the “middle class”.

Before I launch into my own narrow-minded description of American “classes,” I will admit that I don’t hold much with traditional views of social classes. Mostly they are invented and maintained to divide and serve the purpose of those doing the defining. “Middle class” I see as mostly a socialist term, even if we all know that there certainly is a vast stretch of people in the middle of society who seem to share much. In truth, as that national treasure Thomas Sowell has shown many times, there is quite a bit of movement (both up and down) between the economic classifications due to the economic liberty we enjoy as a free society.

My classifications are based mostly on behavior. In other words, they are cultural. They are about values, not income brackets, race or sex (I will try as hard as possible to keep from using the socially approved term “gender”) or even location. I hold a faint but persistent hope that our current political season has shown a decisive turn back toward those values, that culture, that character.

One of the aspects of that character places value on the work and worth of an individual. It might seem absurd to many for a construction worker or a shirt-tailed rancher to be considered in the same “class” as Donald Trump or Elon Musk. But not if they are reminded that these all are productive individuals who advance or lose in large part by their own work, decisions, initiative and, sometimes, just plain stubborn luck.

The character upon which this nation was founded and has grown is not a content, quiet or submissive one. By nature, it is neither compliant nor fearful. But it is, by nature, productive. It produces results. Things are built; problems are addressed and solved so that production (of whatever sort) moves on. It values competence and achievement. It judges by result.

Another national treasure, Victor Davis Hanson, refers to those who live by this character as the “muscular class”. They live by actions and not vague promises. They do not want false guarantees but opportunities and the freedom to pursue them.

Those who are constantly trying to “explain” the rise of Trump have little “feel” for these people. They cannot be understood within the collective ideology. If they wear a shirt and tie or a hard hat, their hearts tell them that the farm, the store, the company, the nation cannot grow and prosper without individuals who possess the ethic of producing and achieving.

So after decades of being marginalized or just plain ignored by elites and politicos of both parties, they have found a voice outside of the “established order” that feels like them. And the reach of that voice stretches across all the perceived “classes” imagined by the pundits and social planners.

What is shared might well be the same ethos that, in the 1770s, brought together single-plot farmers of the middle colonies, shipping magnates in Boston, New England fishermen, city merchants of Philadelphia and Overmountain settlers of the Carolinas. I tend to think of it as a culture of Liberty.

It is a culture which felt every pleb, serf and peon has a soul, a spirit with purpose and potential. And yes, every millionaire and billionaire as well. And it holds that each has the right to the opportunity of approaching that potential through their own merit and effort.

That is the “class” that characterizes the heart of American survival.