The left is more closely aligned with socialism and communism than it is with capitalism, and leftists are inherently self-contradictory in their ideological philosophy.  They demand equality for all yet set themselves up as elitists who stand above the “masses,” arrogantly telling people how they should feel and live. 

There’s a certain irony in this contradiction, especially when viewed through the lens of the volatile 1960s, when protests, riots, and assassinations dominated the decade.  It was during this time when cultural and social criticism against the alleged conformist middle classes began in full.

Although the intellectual and political elitists demand that you think like them, they are totally unaware of the fact that if everyone thought like them, much less lived like them, their status as elitists would vanish, in effect creating the conformity of thought and lifestyle they began criticizing during the fifties.  It was during this decade when progressive intellectuals, most notably Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, and Jack Kerouac, took it upon themselves to set themselves apart from society during the prosperous post-WW2 years that defined the new Beat generation and morphing into the hippie revolution soon to follow.

This is a disconnect that’s been growing wider and more evident the last 70-plus years, culminating in the revenge of the masses by electing Trump president in a landslide.  Nixon set the table for the eventual breakup of the FDR working-class coalition that had been the base for the Democrats for generations.  The migration to the Republicans began with Nixon, who won a landslide election in 1972 by the Silent Majority, the large number of voters who were fed up with the rebellions and volatility of the sixties.  It was something of a hardhat revolution, where the electoral tectonic plates were slowly and inexorably moving from the political left to the political right.

Reagan capitalized on this movement by speaking directly to the vast political middle of the country.  In retrospect, Reagan was Trump’s political godfather.  Make America Great Again wasn’t Reagan’s slogan, but his messaging and America first policies are what got him elected twice in decisive fashion.  It was only a matter of time before someone would carry on Reagan’s legacy and pick up where he left off.

Lucky for the country that that person happened to be Donald Trump.  With his second election to the presidency, Trump has exposed for all the world to see that the political and intellectual elite have no clothes, that their pontificating on MSNBC, CNN, and the Sunday-morning news shows amounted to being “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Whatever influence the American elitist classes thought they had, from the media to academia to entertainment, is dead and buried with Trump’s election.  It’s the revenge of all those who work their butts off day-in and day-out, on a truck or a tractor or a construction site or an assembly line, in order to make ends meet while raising families.  They aren’t going to be insulted anymore, told they’re mindless and bigoted conformists needing to be enlightened by their arrogant “betters.”

Maybe it’s the elitist classes that have been the conformists all along.  After all, they all share the same ivory tower.

Image: Cindy Shebley via Flickr, CC BY 2.0.