Our lefty friends like to think that their "activism" is all organic, the voice of the oppressed rising up from the wastelands of eternal oppression. But, in fact, the story of lefty politics of the last two hundred years is always top-down. It always involves well-born educated youth deciding what is best for the lower classes and then beating up on the middle class in order to prove that the middle class was beating up on the poor.
In fact, the only time the middle class beats up on the poor is when the poor start striking and food-rioting during some economic downturn, usually involving post-war deflation.
Of course, the lefty activism gig started out as a pretty cool concept, because the lower classes were easily the most numerous, and he that could lead them could easily overcome the less numerous middle class if it came to a battle. Mostly, however, the middle class was willing to help the lower class with free education and various pro-worker handouts.
But now, of course, we have the educated class on the last legs of the good old over-under political formula, and the only problem is that the ordinary middle class of yeomen and commoners is the biggest sector of society. And the middle class doesn't like being the scapegoat for everything that goes wrong with the noble plans of the ruling educated class.
The thing about the middle class is that it is the responsible class. If there is a job to do, then the middle class does not wait for a leader. It organizes itself. It starts businesses; it runs clubs. Back in the day every middle class family belonged to some fraternal association or mutual-aid society.
So when the Tea Party emerged in 2009-10, it was par for the course. We'd elected our First Black President: been there, done that. Now let's push back on the uber-progressive big spending plans of the hoity-toity educated-class progressives.
Famously, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused the Tea Party of being AstroTurf, a fake movement gussied up by conservative billionaires.
To give Our Nance her due, the billionaires did get involved. But it was after the ordinary Tea Partiers got the whole thing going.
Now, we can say that it was Trump that got the Trump Train going. Only, I'd say, the GOP voters were clearly waiting for him. We were for Ted Cruz until it appeared that Donald Trump would be Ted Cruz on steroids.
What surprised me during the Trump era is how much the Trump voters self-organized to show their support for him, in Trump Car Parades and Trump Boat Parades, with flags and paraphernalia bought on the Internet. I once witnessed a Trump Car Parade at at La Conner, Washington, which is a town about 90 minutes drive out of Seattle where ladies like to go for lunch and a bit of shopping. The cars in the parade were mostly driven by white ladies of a certain age.
Now, of course, we have the organic, er, Let's Go Brandon chants at college football games and NASCAR races, to the consternation of the Best and Brightest.
And we have the parents showing up at school-board meetings and objecting to lefty indoctrination and CRT curricula. And, we find out, school boards are maintaining personal databanks on the parent "activists."
Actually, I feel sorry for the school-board chappies. They did not imagine they would be getting into a political hurricane. They are ordinary folks that are frightened by the fierce winds of real politics.
Listen, I just have a feeling that you ain't seen nothin' yet.
Do I know what will be coming up in 2022, the inflation midterm? No, I don't. But I bet you a nickel that some sort of organic movement emerges that has nothing to do with the official GOP or right-wing billionaires.
And as for 2024! You know what I think. I think that 2024 will be the presidential election for the ages. But I have no idea how or why. Because whatever it is, it will be organic, emerging unbidden from the great American middle class.
And, as usual, the ruling class and the media and the Twitterati and the rest of the Cathedral won't have a clue.
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