Working Class Conservatives: The Only Path Forward

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One of the great unsolved mysteries that has routinely perplexed the pseudo-intellectual bubbles among academic socialists of the chair has been why the great majority of America’s working class have refused to embrace socialism to the same extent as their European and Latin American brethren.

In the typical fashion of the ivory tower intelligentsia, scapegoats were conceived.

They claim the proletariat revolution never spread to these shores, not least because of the economic and political destitution of socialism, but rather that the great mass of the American working class bought into a great and evil capitalist lie.

What is this lie? Well, it can be best explained by the famous quote from American author and noted communist sympathizer, John Steinbeck:

“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”

The quote perfectly fits into the patronizing progressive mindset that the working class are simply “too stupid to know what’s good for them” and thus they must be told what to think and believe.

For generations the left have arrogantly paraded this line of thought as an excuse for their own failure to win over the hearts and minds of the American public. Modern Pelosi Democrats have carried on this great tradition in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s upset victory in the presidential election.

This contemptuous attitude was not born overnight, however.

You see, leftism in this country did not spring out organically from the working poor themselves. It was instead imported into the halls of coastal academia via successive waves of primarily German emigres fleeing their own failed socialist revolutions in Europe. Leftism was always unique in America as being the domain not of the working poor but rather the Europhilic bourgeoisie.

This is the real reason leftism was held at bay in this country for so long.

It was not a misguided populace, but rather the left’s own suffocatingly self righteous attitude, and later, the very consequences of their own failed policies. Both ultimately took several generations to fully reveal themselves.

The notion of “temporarily embarrassed millionaires” is not some laughable fantasy of a callus-laced blue collar carpenter, it was actually a reality in this country for the longest time. Climbing the economic ladder of society was not only possible, it was the norm. This massive wealth generation, brought about by our free enterprise system, was always a thorn in the side of would be socialist central planners.

How could the left successfully argue for the expropriation of the means of production when that very capital was simultaneously employing and raising the living standards of countless millions of Americans?

They realized early on that unlike the serfdoms and monarchies of Europe, the American free market system was too resilient and prosperous to take down in one fell Leninist swoop. They instead opted for a more ‘centrist’ approach to their ends. They would successively corrode the foundation of American capitalism from the inside with an endless series of new taxes, regulations, and bureaucracy, with the sole aim to stifle industry into submission.

These initiatives were always presented to the people as a way not to replace the system but instead ‘fix’ or ‘perfect’ it.

These ‘fixes’ ended up destroying the industrial heartland of this country. As the factories left for more hospitable shores, the infrastructure decayed, and cities crumbled, the American worker was left gutted both economically and spiritually.

This continued for decades until the left gave up all pretense of being the champions of the working class. They now openly praised deindustrialization as both an economic and environmental boon for society. They claim that a modern technologically advanced economy eventually “outgrows” the need for mass industry, that all we really need are comfy service sector white collar jobs, available only after years of debt-laden university “education”. All the jobs moving overseas were not a consequence of Democrat policies, they claim, but rather a consequence of the times, and backwards Middle America ought to get used to it, along with all 88 new genders.

It was from this political vacuum that Donald Trump was able to win the White House. An inspiring and uplifting message of jobs and return of industry is what won the blue collar voter, over the Democrats’ promises of more EPA regulations and mass migration. Donald Trump’s simple embrace of down to earth mannerisms and speech rather than lecturing from a pedestal was a resonating change of tune from years of out of touch Republican candidates.

This new breed of working class conservatism is the only path forward for Republicans. They can embrace it and continue to win big league, or they can scoff it up as nothing more than a one cycle anomaly.

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