Ruling Against the Ruling Class

The liberal elite has been redefined. Call it the Ruling Class, and the rest of us the Country Class.

In the last issue we published one of the longest pieces ever to appear in The American Spectator, Angelo Codevilla's "America's Ruling Class -- And the Perils of Revolution." We knew it was a tour de force when we published it, but we had no idea of the reach that it would have. As soon as the issue found its way to our subscribers and onto the newsstands, we started getting calls, emails, letters, and the rest. "Required reading," we were told. "Essential." "A must read." And so on. After a couple of weeks, we posted the piece on the Spectator website, and more comments came piling in. And a couple of days later, Rush Limbaugh spent his entire show-three hours-talking about it. "I very seldom use the word important," said El Rushbo, "and Angelo Codevilla's piece is important."

It then went viral on the Internet. Our website was jammed for days, the piece was discussed on hundreds of websites, and none of us involved with the Spectator could go anywhere without hearing about "this fantastic piece by Codevilla." The essay has now been turned into a book, available early in September on www.spectator.org, and in the bookstores. The whole episode has restored our faith in the impact that a small opinion journal can have.

Rush Limbaugh remarked that a lot of things fell into place when he read "America's Ruling Class," and indeed they do. Consider a few of the people and issues floating around the newsrooms: Elena Kagan. John Kerry's yacht. Chelsea Clinton's royal wedding. The Obama challenge to the Arizona immigration law and the federal court's first response.

I do think Codevilla’s essay is a watershed in modern political discourse. It is somewhat analogous in timing and effect to Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense”.

“Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.”
- Thomas Paine

Today's events so echo those of France in 1789. The nobility and clergy were the ruling classes in France and had nothing but disdain for the common people. They too thought they were ordained to direct the lives of the common people. They too were oblivious to the seething animosity that the common people had for them and they were surprised when the revolution came. Obama and his wife so resemble the bumbling Louis and haughty Marie Antoinette.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
George Santayana

It has been obvious for some time that the Rats and the RINOs only cared about being in the ruling class and gathering more power an money for themselves.

The "Ruling Class" in this country has changed several times. Each time the change over has been unpleasant to say the least. Prior to 1860 the ruling class was the landed gentry. A middle of the road Southern landholder was considered infinitely more cultured than some New England factory owner, even if the latter had ten times the wealth of the former. The change from Landholder (Not plantation as big northern landholders were included in the ruling class) to Big Business men caused the costliest war in US history.

The robber barons ran the place for the next 60 years. Every president between grant and Hoover was put in place by the men of Wall Street. Breaking the hold of that ruling class cost us the great depression and World War II.

Since FDR the academics and lawyers have dictated our ruling class. Even men like Reagen couldn't get in unless they paid lip service by putting an academic like G.H.W. Bush on the ticket.

Each transition has been brought about when the ruling class overreached, thought itself all knowing, and then failed so badly that the majority lost faith in their rule. It is obvious that we are in one of those failure periods now. The current ruling class, now having been identified as such, will be driven from power.

Who will take over from them is not all together obvious. The industrialists were not the ones who started the Civil War. Neither the religious abolition movement, nor the landholding state's rights movement had many adherents among the industrialists. However the war destroyed the the other two groups and enriched the industrialists. They were able to take over largely by default.

Likewise the downfall of the industrialists in the 1930s did not bring their main competitor, the communists, to power immediately. The depression, war, and cold war broke the back of both groups. The lawyers and academics split from the Communists and took power by controlling the bureaucracy.

Who will take over this time? It won't be the one worlders. They have shown that they can't deliver anything but empty rhetoric. Nor will it be big business, for their time has long past. If history teaches us one thing the tea parties, while being the instrument used to bring down the elite, will not be the ones who fill the vacuum thus created. Look for a group on the right, who is respected, has an independent power base, and is active, but not leading, the charge against the academics and lawyers.

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