The hidden truth of American politics

White Elephants: Are Republicans an Endangered Species?

Their problem is not about race.

And it’s even more not about sex.

Their problem is about class.

Everyone is hypnotized by the universal refusal to see that the major fault-line in American politics is the class war and the principle contrast between the two major parties is in their positions in that war.

The Republican Party has been dominated by conservatives for several decades and the one point common to all their factions is an unshakeable commitment to rolling back every advance of progressivism since Teddy Roosevelt.

The one change to the Republicans’ current political project that could improve their cut of the vote both immediately and in the long run would be abandonment of fiscal conservatism and a return to the economic liberalism of Eisenhower, Nixon, and Rockefeller.

Everyone knows, though no one wants to say, what keeps Hispanics and blacks and other non-whites and lots and lots of whites out of their party is not some sort of race problem or gender problem or even a culture problem.

It’s the class-war, stupid.

The Republican Party is firmly in the hands of the greediest, most selfish, and most unscrupulous plutocracy we have seen in this country in a century or more.

And they aren’t letting go.

But it would advantage nobody to say so, really.

The champions of liberal politics do better, think they do better, or pretend to think they do better among voters to paint the Republicans as wicked old white men who hate women and hate everybody who isn’t white.

But the more important fact is that the moment they start to tell the home truth of American politics that it’s all about the class war the rich donors the Democrats depend on start complaining, threatening, and running away.

And the conservatives will certainly not be the ones to admit the Republican Party’s problem is that fiscal conservatism is the most deadly and effective voter-repellent in the country.

But it is.

A liberal takeover of the Republican Party is not in the cards for the foreseeable future.

But that, and only that, would guarantee them a better future with America’s voters.

The rest is bilge water.

Update, 0601 hrs EST 02152013.

Jeez. In America, we can't even say "working class."

The middle class is doctors, lawyers, and bankers, for cryin' out loud.