David Brooks: The Class War Before Palin
Over the past 15 years, the same argument has been heard from a thousand politicians and a hundred television and talk-radio jocks. The nation is divided between the wholesome Joe Sixpacks in the heartland and the oversophisticated, overeducated, oversecularized denizens of the coasts.
I think both parties have completely lost their way.
Republicans used to be fiscally conservative. They were for small government. They tended to be socially conservative but they also stayed out of people’s lives. What the hell happened? Twenty years post-Reagan, laissez-faire economics and dozens of Party-financed Think Tanks later they’ve lied their way into the heads of the citizens who are the most damaged by trickle-down economics, mostly by appealing to Christian moral issues that the average politician completely ignores in his own personal life. The NeoCons – “Teddy Roosevelt Republicans” – even lie to themselves. There is nothing there for me.
The Democrats used to be social activists, wanting big government to create a nanny state that gives away all the middle class’s money to the disadvantaged. Instead of developing a unified political platform, the only thing the Dems agreed upon was women’s rights. The rest of the issues were totally repressed in the name of Political Correctness. Denial is the main party line.
I don’t know what’s going on now. The whole country has moved to the right. The Republicans have become rabid authoritarian moralists. The Dems have moved into a centrist, fiscally conservative position and are displaying their authoritarian insistence on denial.
I’m not sure where that leaves me. I’m certainly not a female Joe-sixpack. I’m not a member of the Liberal Elite either. I’m kind of in between.
We need a third party.
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