Our Second Revolution
Published in Marietta Daily Journal January 22, 2017
Well, well ! It does appear that our recent presidential
election was won by bikers, plumbers, lots of doctors and their patients,
welders, mechanics, electricians, small farmers, small business owners, country
singers, Bill Gaither fans, pro-lifers, evangelicals, and small town
America. It was lost by political
consultants, pollsters, career politicians, lobbyists, party loyalists,
bureaucrats, donors, television news anchors, commentators, and socialists. (For clarity, I will reluctantly call these
two camps Group I and Group II.)
How many in Group II, do you suppose,
know who Bill Gaither is? How many had
to decide which bill or two they would lay aside and not pay this month? How many of them go to church? (That question doesn’t question their
faith. It questions the breadth and
depth of their knowledge of the heartland.)
Of the rise of Group I, Andrew
Jackson would be proud. So would Thomas Jefferson and Margaret Thatcher. The Iron Lady was a grocer’s daughter. Her family lived above her father’s store. Donald Trump has nothing that compares to
Thatcher’s piercing eyes and always-ready words for the Group II of her Prime
Minister days.
As for Jefferson, his ideal of participatory
democracy has been advanced. Donald
Trump caused voter lists to swell. The
political class (Group II) should ask why.
This second revolution has
surprising facets. One is the political
left’s new disdain for Russia. The
political left was always soft on communism. Even after Reagan, Thatcher, and
Pope John Paul’s demolition of communism, the left was still inclined to love
the Soviet Union’s old order, her socialism in other words. The left reacted in horror when President
Reagan remarked, “My policy toward the Soviets is ‘we win; they lose’.” The left was afraid that Reagan and Thatcher
were going to get us all blown up.
But now the left pretends they just
can’t stand Russia. We know why. The Russians, they argue, defeated Clinton and
elected that mad man. Since the losers
in the election think Mr. Trump is not “legitimate,” they obviously think that
those who voted for him are illegitimate as well. And unwashed. Farmers and mechanics, you know, have to get
dirty. Pro-lifers are religious fanatics,
and small town America is unsophisticated.
Still in shock, Group II cannot think straight about the election.
(I hate to use the word Group like
this, but identity politics is what those who lost understand. I’m trying to help them.)
In 1988 a colleague said to me,
“Have you heard this new Limbaugh guy on the radio? You would enjoy him.” My colleague and I
shared not one political or social viewpoint, but she and I were great
friends. When I tuned in to Limbaugh, I
heard a national voice defending the pro-life position, resisting intrusive
government, extolling the little guy, and even challenging the growing argument
that everybody should go to college.
I was amazed that any national voice
was saying what Limbaugh was saying. Why? Because ABC, CBS, and NBC had effectively
kept traditionalists like myself in the desert.
It was a desert we were resigned to.
We didn’t expect the networks to be anything but the eastern seaboard
megaphone that they were. Their painting
of both Goldwater and Reagan as crazy cowboys void of east and west coast
enlightenment was typical. The Washington-New York nexus plus L.A. was where
all wisdom lay.
We
desert-dwellers waited for the light.
William F. Buckley was singing our tune in his National Review magazine,
but appealed primarily to conservative intellectuals, not to the patriotic
little guy.
With the advent of Limbaugh and
cable television, a different viewpoint was beamed out. The second revolution was waged. Since its seeds were sown by Goldwater and
Reagan, traditionalists thought that the Obama interlude would be followed by a
Reagan-type leader, but it was not to be. Sometimes you just have to be content with a
doggone billionaire who is as imperfect as the rest of us. But if he’s fearless, as was Reagan, …
Group II is not going to be quiet. They have been stung and the stinger
stuck. Angrily, they will strike back
for the next four years. But note the
big difference between the two groups. Review
the lists above. Group I makes its living by working, Group II by talking. I believe Group I simply got tired of all the
talkers, not to mention their elitism and pro-statist, anti-individualist views.
The
proletariat has spoken and won, the bourgeoisie is apoplectic, and that’s a
revolution.
Viva
la revolucion !
Roger
Hines
1/18/17
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