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2019-06-13 Home Front: Culture Wars

Why Are the Western Middle Classes So Angry?

What is going on with the unending Brexit drama, the aftershocks of Donald Trump's election and the "yellow vests" protests in France? What drives the growing estrangement of southern and eastern Europe from the European Union establishment? What fuels the anti-EU themes of recent European elections and the stunning recent Australian re-election of conservatives?

Put simply, the middle classes are revolting against Western managerial elites. The latter group includes professional politicians, entrenched bureaucrats, condescending academics, corporate phonies and propagandistic journalists.

What are the popular gripes against them?

One, illegal immigration and open borders have led to chaos. Lax immigration policies have taxed social services and fueled multicultural identity politics, often to the benefit of boutique leftist political agendas.

Two, globalization enriched the cosmopolitan elites who found worldwide markets for their various services. New global markets and commerce meant Western nations outsourced, offshored and ignored their own industries and manufacturing (or anything dependent on muscular labor that could be replaced by cheaper workers abroad).

Three, unelected bureaucrats multiplied and vastly increased their power over private citizens. The targeted middle classes lacked the resources to fight back against the royal armies of tenured regulators, planners, auditors, inspectors and adjustors who could not be fired and were never accountable.

Four, the new global media reached billions and indoctrinated rather than reported.

Five, academia became politicized as a shrill agent of cultural transformation rather than focusing on education -- while charging more for less learning.

Six, utopian social planning increased housing, energy and transportation costs.

One common gripe framed all these diverse issues: The wealthy had the means and influence not to be bothered by higher taxes and fees or to avoid them altogether. Not so much the middle classes, who lacked the clout of the virtue-signaling rich and the romance of the distant poor.

In other words, elites never suffered the firsthand consequences of their own ideological fiats.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2019-06-13 10:45|| || Front Page|| [12 views ] Top

#1 When you pay up front (taxes) and on the back end (consequences of political policies) and have essentially no say in either one nor any reason to be satisfied with the outcome, WTF else are you going to be?

Posted by M. Murcek 2019-06-13 11:45|| 2019-06-13 11:45|| Front Page Top

#2 Because democracy turned out to be a con.

Posted by Dron66046 2019-06-13 11:47|| 2019-06-13 11:47|| Front Page Top

#3 Because, for the last several decades, the Western elites have been making war on us.

Posted by Abu Uluque 2019-06-13 12:18|| 2019-06-13 12:18|| Front Page Top

#4 I wish people would stop calling them 'elite'. It's like putting a label 'extraordinary' on dogshit.

(noun)/ a select group that is superior in terms of ability or qualities to the rest of a group or society.

This is by no means true. Even a cursory examination of their credentials or record of achievements (with actual significance) will reveal that what are being referred to as elites are some mediocre actors, academic poseurs, dabblers not experts in the sciences, snobs with some kind of windfall behind them, riding the momentum of accidental recognition or encashing on the stupidity of the ignorant masses.

Posted by Dron66046 2019-06-13 14:43|| 2019-06-13 14:43|| Front Page Top

#5 I, I, I...have no response.
I'm acrimonious.

Posted by Skidmark 2019-06-13 15:15|| 2019-06-13 15:15|| Front Page Top

#6 OK, Dron66046, how about the kleptocracy?

Posted by Abu Uluque 2019-06-13 15:22|| 2019-06-13 15:22|| Front Page Top

#7 I wish people would stop calling them 'elite'.

One must call them something, Dron66046, and both ruling class and technocrats are out of favour, while who has the French to be willing to be called an eminence gris nowadays?

Yes, Minister nailed it back in the 1980s, but then the Brits had a head start of several centuries on us.

Posted by trailing wife 2019-06-13 15:32|| 2019-06-13 15:32|| Front Page Top

#8 eminence gris

I had eggs and grits for breakfast.
There were more grits.

Posted by Skidmark 2019-06-13 15:46|| 2019-06-13 15:46|| Front Page Top

#9 Because democracy turned out to be a con.

Not so much back when the rules of decorum still applied. When you could no longer knock a man down for his behavior, the capitalists began to emerge.

Posted by Skidmark 2019-06-13 15:49|| 2019-06-13 15:49|| Front Page Top

#10 I suppose elite will just have to do then. We'll write it off as one more beautiful word that now means something shitty. Like 'liberal'.

Posted by Dron66046 2019-06-13 16:26|| 2019-06-13 16:26|| Front Page Top

#11 Because democracy turned out to be a con.

Speechless.

Posted by Woodrow 2019-06-13 16:27|| 2019-06-13 16:27|| Front Page Top

#12 "Kakistocracy" would be too clunky, I guess.

"Elite" is the word we have for the phenomenon now, and we shouldn't waste a lot of time and energy sperging out over phraseology.

That's what the Bowtie Boys do in order to avoid substantive discussions and hard questions like "What have you actually conserved?".

Posted by charger 2019-06-13 16:42|| 2019-06-13 16:42|| Front Page Top

#13 Because democracy turned out to be a con.

It's painful, but hard to avoid this conclusion.

Look at what the majority votes for (Brexit, secure borders, sovereignty, not being ruled by freaks) and look at what it's actually gotten.

Trump's win in 2016 is still being re-litigated two and a half years later.

Whatever we've got, you can't call it democracy or republicanism.

It's managed, conditional (if the elites approve of how we vote, they'll actually "honor" the outcome.) mobocracy.

Posted by charger 2019-06-13 16:51|| 2019-06-13 16:51|| Front Page Top

#14 "Self-appointed elites™" works

ask someone on the street who Bill Kristol, George Will, Brian Stetler, David Gergen, et al are and they'd say: "Who?"

Posted by Frank G 2019-06-13 18:16|| 2019-06-13 18:16|| Front Page Top

#15 Confucius say: Eminence grise
Spoiled fruit of Francais and Chinese,
Whose mandarin flew
To the head of the queue:
"Who want haircut? You next! If you please."

Posted by Anginemp Elmitch7774 2019-06-13 18:49|| 2019-06-13 18:49|| Front Page Top

#16 Elites is said with a sneer and laugh. Much as the word liberal to describe illiberal policies or progressive to describe those with regressive politics. Think people’s republic.

Posted by Rjschwarz 2019-06-13 19:05|| 2019-06-13 19:05|| Front Page Top

#17 Russia already has the perfect word for them: Chekists, because when you really look, that's what they are.

Posted by Silentbrick 2019-06-13 19:28|| 2019-06-13 19:28|| Front Page Top

#18 Because democracy turned out to be a con.

Not a con. Your refusal to acknowledge an oligarchy because you dearly want to believe in democracy is not a con. It's denial on your part.

One of the fatal flaws of the republic was to have an entire branch with life appointments and no real accountability. As with human nature, the aggrandizement of power happened, just took a bit longer than normal.

Another was to engage in being the world's policeman thus concentrating even more power in the Executive than was ever intended. The Constitution was not designed for that.

Posted by Procopius2k 2019-06-13 19:40|| 2019-06-13 19:40|| Front Page Top

#19 Confucius say, kinda bemused,
"That dude make me sound too confused.
I betcha ten dollar
This gwailo no scholar.
Can humble self please be excused?"

Also, ~~Whose~~ New mandarin flew (per channelled grom ;-))

Posted by Vinegar Stalin6202 2019-06-13 20:00|| 2019-06-13 20:00|| Front Page Top

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