Kimberly Strassel is one of the good ones, I don’t say that just because she’s rarity a Conservative Journalist. I say that because she does her best to be fair, and honest. A rare quality in a member of the Press.

Great piece by Strassel

The Them-vs.-Us Election by @KimStrassel https://t.co/hwB5UHatdG via @WSJopinion
— Patrick Van Roy (@PatrickVan81948) January 19, 2024

The Them-vs.-Us Election

Not all rich people are ‘elite’—and that helps explain America’s cultural divide.

By Kimberley A. StrasselFollow

Jan. 18, 2024 6:37 pm ET

Most Americans wouldn’t consider a banking titan a spokesman for the common man. But give JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon credit for putting his pinkie finger on the phenomenon—the divide—that best explains today’s unsettled political environment.

No most American’s wouldn’t know him if they fell over him, let alone how much he and his business can effect their lives for good or ill.

In an interview Wednesday with CNBC, Mr. Dimon took issue with a disconnected liberal elite that scorns “MAGA” voters. “The Democrats have done a pretty good job with the ‘deplorables’ hugging on to their bibles, and their beer and their guns. I mean, really? Could we just stop that stuff, and actually grow up, and treat other people with respect and listen to them a little bit?”

Mr. Dimon however nails the frustration of over half the American Public with his statement right there. Enough already is what the majority are feeling, but not screaming. Most of us have given up screaming it, and have gone silent. That should scare the hell out of you.

The powerful, the intellectual and the lazy have long said that the “divide” in this country is between rich and poor. They divvy up Americans along traditional lines related to wealth—college, no college, white-collar, blue-collar, income—then layer on other demographics. This framing has given us the “diploma divide” and the “new suburban voter” and “Hillbilly Elegy.” It’s sent the political class scrambling to understand Donald Trump’s “forgotten man”—again, defined economically.

It’s never been about the money, it has always been about the morality. The Right and the Wrong.

That framing fails to account for the country’s unsettled electorate. There’s a better description of the shifts both between and within the parties, a split that better explains changing voter demographics and growing populist sentiments. It’s the chasm between a disconnected elite and average Americans. This is becoming a them-vs.-us electorate and election. Political candidates, take heed.

The United States was never meant to have a “Political Class”, yet over the past 100yrs we’ve developed one to the nations detriment. Of the People, by the People, for the People. That is how it is supposed to be and no longer is.

This gulf is described by unique new polling from Scott Rasmussen’s RMG Research, conducted for the Committee to Unleash Prosperity. Mr. Rasmussen says that for more than a year he’d been intrigued by consistent outlier data from a subset of Americans, which he later defined as those with a postgraduate degree, earning more than $150,000 a year, and living in a high-density area. Mr. Rasmussen in the fall conducted two surveys of these “elites” and compared their views to everyone else.

Mr. Rasmussen suddenly discovered a missing piece of the puzzle. The upper middleclass gits. Those that after college actually found decent paying jobs that afford them to live in the “Clean Safe” sectors of our urban hell holes.

Talk about out of touch. Among the elite, 74% say their finances are getting better, compared with 20% of the rest of voters. (The share is 88% among elites who are Ivy League graduates.) The elite give President Biden an 84% approval rating, compared with 40% from non-elites. And their complete faith in fellow elites extends beyond Mr. Biden. Large majorities of them have a favorable view of university professors (89%), journalists (79%), lawyers and union leaders (78%) and even members of Congress (67%). Two-thirds say they’d prefer a candidate who said teachers and educational professionals, not parents, should decide what children are taught.

What is being described here are the brainwashed University trained Marxists. The gits who don’t even understand that that is what they are, MARXIST.

More striking is the elite view on bedrock American principles, central to the biggest political fights of today. Nearly 50% of elites believe the U.S. provides “too much individual freedom”—compared with nearly 60% of voters who believe there is too much “government control.” Seventy-seven percent of elites support “strict rationing of gas, meat, and electricity” to fight climate change, vs. 28% of everyone else. More than two-thirds of elite Ivy graduates favor banning things like gasoline-powered cars and stoves and inessential air travel in the name of the environment. More than 70% of average voters say they’d be unwilling to pay more than $100 a year in taxes or costs for climate—compared with 70% of elites who said they’d pay from $250 up to “whatever it takes.”

Those are the effects of decades of brainwashing by the Teachers Union, the “Educated Elite”. They make an average of twice the money of the American Family, and never have to face the consequences of what they teach. They work only 9 months a year, get a raise every year, and can’t be fired. Not the reality of most Americans.

This framing explains today’s politics better. While this elite is small, its members are prominent in every major institution of American power, from media to universities to government to Wall Street, and have become more intent on imposing their agenda from above. Many American voters feel helplessly under assault from policies that ignore their situation or values.

They are the fascist dictators that have no clue that they follow Marx, not Franklin, Jefferson, and Maddison. They are going to organize things the way THEY believe it should work, regardless of the failures of their policies that surround them in their urban cocoons of private security.

What unites “rich” and “poor” parents in the revolt against educational failings? A common rejection of disconnected teachers unions and ivory-tower academics. Why are growing numbers of minorities—across all incomes and education levels—rejecting Democrats? They no longer recognize a progressive movement that reflexively espouses that elite view. Why are voters on both sides—including “free market” conservatives—gravitating to politicians who bash “big business” and trade and are increasingly isolationist? They feel the system is rigged by elites that care more about the globe than them. And why the continued appeal of Mr. Trump? The man is a walking promise to stick it to the “establishment” (never mind that most of his party’s establishment has endorsed him).

Thing’s have reached the tipping point.

This lack of trust and cultural divide are no healthier than the simpler rich-poor split, but they’re there. The challenge for Mr. Trump’s GOP opponents as they move past Iowa is to recognize the sense of alienation. That doesn’t mean calling to burn everything down (Vivek Ramaswamy tried that and freaked people out), but it does require a campaign that offers more than vague promises to “strengthen the cause of freedom” or run on “your issues.” The polling suggests that most Americans are looking for a leader who promises to return power to the people. They are looking for a freedom agenda. Anyone?

Write to [email protected].

In the last paragraph Ms. Strassel misses the BIG picture. She tunnel visions her view to just the current circus the Republicans are putting on. What she misses is the fact that what she and Rasmussen have come across is a much deeper truth.

This paragraph: More striking is the elite view on bedrock American principles, central to the biggest political fights of today. Nearly 50% of elites believe the U.S. provides “too much individual freedom”—compared with nearly 60% of voters who believe there is too much “government control.” Seventy-seven percent of elites support “strict rationing of gas, meat, and electricity” to fight climate change, vs. 28% of everyone else. More than two-thirds of elite Ivy graduates favor banning things like gasoline-powered cars and stoves and inessential air travel in the name of the environment. More than 70% of average voters say they’d be unwilling to pay more than $100 a year in taxes or costs for climate—compared with 70% of elites who said they’d pay from $250 up to “whatever it takes.” Is the problem.

These upper middleclass “Elite Gits” have pushed the majority to a level of anger that few are noticing, and even fewer will understand when everything blows up in their faces. The real American Dream is not riches, it’s leave me the hell alone to run my life as I see fit, and as long as I’m not hurting anyone no one has a damn thing to say about it. That is the American Dream.

Donald Trump is not the head of a party, he’s the head of a movement. A movement of Americans who are sick and tired of the crap that they are being fed by the Press, the Politicians, and Academics. Those that think otherwise need to pull the sack cloth from their eyes. The frustration crosses all lines. It can’t be segregated by race, creed, religion, or wealth. We hope he can buy us enough time to restore that the Rule of Laww applies to everyone, and that Right & Wrong still matter.