(2021-02-25) Alexander A Modest Proposal For Republicans Use The Word Class

Scott Alexander: A Modest Proposal For Republicans: Use The Word "Class". Pivot from mindless populist rage to a thoughtful campaign to fight classism.

I hear you're having a post-Donald Trump identity crisis... I hate you and you hate me. But maybe I would hate you less if you didn't suck. Also, the more confused you are, the more you flail around sabotaging everything. (Republican Party)

So here's my recommendation: use the word "class". Pivot from mindless populist rage to a thoughtful campaign to fight classism.

Read this first: 2021-02-24-AlexanderBookReviewFussellOnClass

You're already doing class warfare, you're just doing it blindly and confusedly. Instead, do it openly, while using the word "class". (social class)

Trump didn't win on a platform of capitalism and liberty. He won on a platform of being anti-establishment. But which establishment? Not rich people.

Smart people? Now you're burning hot. Trump stood against the upper class. You know the type of people I mean.

Aren't I just describing Democrats? No. The Democrats are a coalition of the upper class, various poor minorities, union labor, and lots of other groups. (Democratic Party)

you make the mistake of saying you hate Democrats, and then it looks like boring old partisanship. Or saying you hate the elites, and then it looks like boring old populism. Or saying you hate rootless cosmopolitans, and then it looks like boring old anti-Semitism. Or saying you hate the government, and then it looks like boring old libertarianism.

Instead, just use the word "class". Say "Hey, we Republicans are the party of the working class. And we don’t like the upper class. Deal with it."

Trump outmanuevered the Republican establishment by finding a front where he could go on the offensive. He ignored the unfavorable terrain of race/sex/etc, and focused on class. He didn't use the word "class". But he captured the idea.

His message - which he never put into words, but which came across clearly anyway - was "you working-class people should hate and fear the upper class, and I’m on your side".

Consciously embracing the project of fighting classism would let future Republican politicians replicate Trump’s appeal without having to stoop to his tactics.

Your job is to get people thinking “white WORKING CLASS!!!” instead. You cannot ethically or pragmatically flatter these people's identity as whites, but you can very easily flatter their identity as the working class.

It could appeal to blacks and Hispanics. They’re mostly working-class, so they hate the elites as much as anyone else.

It could appeal to Republicans who are in it for the capitalism (including the rich donors). You would argue that capitalism is the system that lets people succeed regardless of class.

Every time Democrats attack Elon Musk for being rich, you can point out that Elon Musk was an immigrant who worked hard for his money, and you're the party representing people like that - whereas the Democrats are the party of people who got hired by McKinsey straight out of college... Make your 50-year old working-class Iowa farmer constituent imagine whether he or his kids might ever invent a cool new kind of car, vs. whether they could ever get hired as McKinsey consultants.

It could appeal to poor people who just want to get jobs. Point out how DC Democrats passed a law saying all child care workers must have college degrees, and how this is just a blatant attempt to take jobs away from working-class people in order to give them to upper-class people instead.

It could appeal to Asians, another up-for-grab minority demographic. Asians know they've done the hard work and gotten the test scores that ought to make them successful, but somehow success isn't coming. We all know why this is - they're being excluded by an academic establishment that believes "meritocracy" is a dirty word.

So here's my platform for a Republican platform centered around fighting classism:

1. War On College

Your stretch goal should be to ban discrimination based on college degree status. Professions may continue to accept professional school degrees (eg hospitals can continue to require doctors have a medical school degree), and any company may test their employees' knowledge (eg mining companies can make their geologists pass a geology test)

If you can't actually make degree discrimination illegal, just make all government offices and companies that do business with the government ban degree discrimination

Make universities no longer tax-exempt

Make the bill that does this very clearly earmark the extra tax money for things that help working-class people, like infrastructure or vocational schools.

2. War On Experts

Your solution will be prediction markets.

3. War On The Upper-Class Media: This is your new term for "mainstream media".

4. War On Wokeness. But now it's because wokeness is a made-up mystery religion that college-educated people invented so they could feel superior to you

5. All The Usual Republican Talking Points

Probably this will be a cynical political ploy. But there's also the possibility that you genuinely open up opportunities for working-class people.

There's a theory that the US party system realigns every 50-or-so years. Last time, in 1965, it switched from the Democrats being the party of the South and the Republicans being the party for blacks, to vice versa. If the theory's right, we're in the middle of an equally big switch. Wouldn't it be great if the Republicans became the racially diverse party of the working class? You can make it happen!


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