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Throughout the Obama years, one of the more frequent Republicancriticisms of the Democratic presidentwas that he was engaging in class warfare against the richand punishing success.President Obama, Republicans claimed time and again, was fosteringresentment against the wealthy and cynically exploiting class divisions for political gain. Class warfare may make for good politics, but it makes for rotten economics, said Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., at one point,while responding to Obamas proposal for a minimum tax of 30 percent on millionaires (i.e., the Buffett tax).

Like the allegationsthat Obama was a foreign-born Muslim or a socialist (and occasionally evena communist), however,this chargenever had much truth to it. The wealthiest Americans continued to do exceedingly well under Obama. Indeed, President Obamawas if anything the antithesis of a class warrior, as he approached governing in a detached and technocratic manner,often setting aside moral questions about class, inequality and social structure to concentrate on more practical questions. (Would a true left-wingclass warrior have protectedWall Street CEOs from the pitchforks?)

Though Obama was far from the moralizing class warrior that Fox News depicted him to be, Republicans perceived him as such because his administrationspolicies were not always favorable towardbillionaires and corporations, and on occasion the presidentwould remark on the fact that economic inequality hadincreased. Ironically, the conservative obsession with Obamas apparent class politics often revealed more about Republicans and their own class politics than it did about Obama. While the 44th presidents administration sought to played a neutral role in terms of class interests (something that earned him plenty of criticism from progressives), modern Republicans have never failed to serve the interests of billionaires and corporate America.

This kind ofrhetoricwas part of a long tradition in which Republican politicians denounce class warfare and those who purportedlyengage in it while actively waging their own class war against the poor and working class.

This class warfarehas become all the more apparent since the GOPtook over the federal government earlier this year. Nothing has revealed the GOPs disdain for poor people and working-class familiesquite like the Republican health carebillscurrentlyin the House and Senate, which would both provide generous tax cuts to the rich while cutting health benefits for the poor, the middle class and the elderly (and also throw more than 20 million people off health insurance, according to the CBO). It is hard to exaggeratethe mass suffering that these bills would cause. As Jeff Spross recently pointed out in The Week,Not in their most fevered imaginations do left-wing tax-hikers envision inflicting this kind of suffering on the 1 percent.

In the Nation,Zoe Carpenter accuratelysummed up Trumpcarelast week: The Senate GOP isnt fixing healthcare. Its waging class war.

With thisclass waron fulldisplayone might expect a growingnumber of Americans to finallyrecognizethe GOP as the party of, by and for the rich. But its not as if this is a new effort. Republicans have been waging this class war for decades, yetjust eight months ago Donald Trump managed to win the election by running as a populist, and his victory was due in large part to the support he received fromRust Belt states, where working-class people have felt the brunt of the GOPs decades-longassault on working people. To some extent, Trump succeeded in the Rust Belt because he was seen by many people as a different kind of Republicanwho would actually help workers (his stance on free trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership obviously played a role in this perception). But Trumps success was also the result of a kind of cultural class warfare thathas been in the GOP playbook for a very long time.

Over the past few decades Republicans have not only waged an economic class war against the working class but a cultural class waragainst the so-called liberal elite which includes college professors, journalists, Democratic politicians, urban professionals, Hollywood entertainers and so on. While Trumps rhetoric may be unusually belligerent, the practice of railing against cultural elites has been employed by conservatives forgenerations, as Thomas Frank explored in his 2004 book, Whats the Matter With Kansas?The true genius of the rights culture war is that it enablesclear economic elites like Trump to portray themselvesas populists,even while they enactpolicies that servebillionaires and multinationalcorporations.

Right-wing populism, Frank observes, both encourages class hostility in the cultural sense and simultaneously denies the economic basis of the grievance. Thus, Republicans can wage their class war on the working class while still claiming to be populists who are fighting for real Americans. Frank elucidates further on the right-wing conception of class:

Class, conservatives insist, is not really about money or birth or even occupation. It is primarily a matter of authenticity, that most valuable cultural commodity. The erasure of the economic is a necessary precondition for most of the basic backlash ideas.

That last point has become all the more relevant in the era of Trump. If the erasure of the economic (from class) is in fact a necessary precondition for the ideas we see embodied in the Republican Party today, then the obvious solution is to restore the primacy of the economic. Frank goes on to make an interesting analogy, describing the right-wing populist vision as nothing more than an old-fashioned leftist vision of the world with the economics drained out.

Where the muckrakers of old faulted capitalism for botching this institution and that, he writes, the backlash thinkers simply change the script to blame liberalism.

This analogy is somewhat unfair toleftists, who had a much more sophisticated worldview that was largely based on reality since capitalism reallywas at fault for many of the problems identified by the muckrakers. But it does raise an important question: Is a modern version of the old-fashioned leftist vision the best way to defeat the phony populism of the right? Obviously left-wingers like Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn believe it is, and the latters unexpected success in last months British election certainly bolsteredthe argument.

Thomas Frank who knows a thing or two about right-wing populism agrees with this sentiment. In his most recent book, Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?,Frank looks at how the Democratic Party abandoned class politics toward the latter part of the 20th century and embraced corporate-friendlycentrism, which gave right-wingers a perfect opportunity to advance their own warped formof class politics. Today we are living in the aftermath of this Democratic shift towardsneoliberalism.

If class warfare is being waged, it is not Democrats who are the aggressors, saidHenry Aaron of the Brookings Institute inan analysis of the House version of Trumpcare published in March. This is doubtless the case, and it is why the Republicans have been so successful in crushing the working class while maintaining theirpopulist veneer.If Democrats want to expose Republicans as the party of the 1 percent and start winning elections again, then perhaps it is time for them to become the aggressorsand start waging a class war of their own.

See the rest here:
Now more than ever, Republicans are engaged in class warfare: Isn't it time for Democrats to fight back? - Salon