Tony Blankley, one of the most astute political commentators, published a column on Sept. 29 titled “Tea Party Has Elites on the Run.” He believes that the Tea Party, by stressing virtues that the elites disdain, has started an “inexorable” movement that will restore power to the middle class.
His argument: The elites (aka the “ruling class” or “political class”) fear and loathe the Tea Party. Why? The answer is in the “remarkably prescient” 1995 book by the late Christopher Lasch, “The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy.” Lasch “would have been giddy over the tea party.”
Lasch described the elites as those who “…control the international flow of money and information, preside over philanthropic foundations and institutions of higher learning, manage the instruments of cultural production and thus set the terms of public debate.” He said they undermine democracy to attain wealth and power and retain their social and political advantages. They disdain virtue and other absolutes.
Lasch said our only hope lies in reviving the middle class and its virtues of hard work, family, faith, and community. The Tea Party will restore democracy by championing these values as well as economic nationalism, patriotism, and similar worthy concepts.
Blankley’s conclusion:
The elite’s fear and loathing of the tea party movement is rooted in the recognition that the real change is only now coming. They are right to be fearful, for the ultimate outcome of the tea party’s triumph will be to constrain the elite’s economic and cultural hegemony….(W)ith power flowing from the elites back to the middle class….an inexorable movement has begun.
