The anxious class poised to revolt
The great American middle class has become an anxious class 鈥� and it鈥檚 in revolt.听
Before I explain how that revolt is playing out, you need to understand the sources of the anxiety.
Start with the fact that the middle class is shrinking, according to a new聽.
The odds of falling into poverty are frighteningly high, especially for the聽without college degrees.听
Two-thirds of Americans are living聽. Most could lose their jobs at any time.
Many are part of a burgeoning 鈥渙n-demand鈥� workforce 鈥� employed as needed, paid whatever they can get whenever they can get it.
Yet if they don鈥檛 keep up with rent or mortgage payments, or can鈥檛 pay for groceries or utilities, they鈥檒l lose their footing.
The stress is taking a toll. For the first time in history, the lifespans of middle-class whites are dropping.
According to聽聽by the recent Nobel-prize winning economist, Angus Deaton, and his co-researcher Anne Case, middle-aged white men and women in the United States have been dying earlier.
They鈥檙e poisoning themselves with drugs and alcohol, or committing suicide.
The odds of being gunned down in America by a jihadist are far smaller than the odds of such self-inflicted deaths, but the recent tragedy in San Bernadino only heightens an overwhelming sense of arbitrariness and fragility.
The anxious class feels vulnerable to forces over which they have no control. Terrible things happen for no reason.
Yet government can鈥檛 be counted on to protect them.
Safety nets are full of holes. Most people who lose their jobsfor unemployment insurance.
Government won鈥檛 protect their jobs from being outsourced to Asia or being taken by a worker here illegally.听
Government can鈥檛 even protect them from evil people with guns or bombs. Which is why the anxious class is arming itself, buying guns at a聽.听
They view government as not so much incompetent as not giving a damn. It鈥檚 working for the big guys and fat cats 鈥� the crony capitalists who bankroll candidates and get special favors in return.
When I visited so-called 鈥渞ed鈥� states this fall, I kept hearing angry complaints that government is run by Wall Street bankers who get bailed out after wreaking havoc on the economy, corporate titans who get cheap labor, and billionaires who get tax loopholes.
Last year two highly-respected political scientists, Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page, took a聽聽at 1,799 policy decisions Congress made over the course of over twenty years, and who influenced those decisions.听
Their conclusion: 鈥淭he preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.鈥�
It was only a matter of time before the anxious class would revolt.
They鈥檇 support a strongman who鈥檇 promise to protect them from all the chaos.
Who鈥檇 save jobs from being shipped abroad, slam Wall Street, stick it to China, get rid of people here illegally, and block terrorists from getting into America.
A strongman who鈥檇 make America great again 鈥� which really means make average working people safe again.
It was a pipe dream, of course 鈥� a conjurer鈥檚 trick. No single person can do this. The world is far too complex. You can鈥檛 build a wall along the Mexican border. You can鈥檛 keep out all Muslims. You can鈥檛 stop corporations from outsourcing abroad.
Nor should you even try.
Besides, we live in a messy democracy, not a dictatorship.
Still, they think maybe he鈥檚 smart enough and tough enough to pull it off. He鈥檚 rich. He tells it like it is.
He makes every issue a test of personal strength. He calls himself strong and his adversaries weak.
So what if he鈥檚 crude and rude? Maybe that鈥檚 what it takes to protect average people in this cruelly precarious world.
For years I鈥檝e heard the rumbles of the anxious class. I鈥檝e listened to their growing anger 鈥� in union halls and bars, in coal mines and beauty parlors, on the Main Streets and byways of the washed-out backwaters of America.
I鈥檝e heard their complaints and cynicism, their conspiracy theories and their outrage.
Most are good people, not bigots or racists. They work hard and they have a strong sense of fairness.
But their world has been slowly coming apart. And they鈥檙e scared and fed up.
Now someone comes along who鈥檚 even more of a bully than those who for years have bullied them economically, politically, and even violently.
The attraction is understandable, even though misguided.
If not Donald Trump, then it will be someone else posing as a strongman. If not this election cycle, it will be the next one.
The revolt of the anxious class has just begun.听
This article first appeared at
