The Republican Party has a reputation for being a?party for?the wealthy. Given?their focus on providing tax cuts for millionaires, cutting spending on programs for the poor and eliminating?regulations for corporations they have earned that reputation. Add in the fact that Blue Blood Mitt Romney was the 2012 GOP presidential nominee and that Senate Minority Leader?Mitch McConnell is also a multi-millionaire and it is easy to see how the stereotype of the Country Club Republican survives. Most elected Republicans and many Republican voters do come from wealthy families. Certainly, the Republican Party continues to do the bidding for America’s wealthiest people. In return, many of the uber rich like the Koch Brothers, Sheldon Adelson, and Donald Trump do their part to bankroll GOP politicians in return for favorable legislation that helps them horde their wealth.
GOP politicians continue to identify with the wealthiest Americans and to view their political fortunes as intertwined with the fortunes of the economic aristocracy. Ironically, however, they increasingly rely upon the votes of Americans who live far removed from the financial empires built on Wall Street or the lobbying firms based on K Street that lobby on behalf of America’s most fortunate citizens. The Republican voter base and the donor base are not identical. This point is apparently lost on many Republican politicians who must walk the tightrope of appealing to the financial elite while portraying themselves as defenders of the common man.
This inter-party tension between the business elite and the faux-populist, anti-elitist base brimmed over in the Georgia GOP Senate primary when Republican David Perdue ridiculed fellow candidate Republican Secretary of State Karen Handel for only having a high school education. Perdue, the?wealthy ex-CEO of Dollar General, had no idea that his remarks would arouse an intense political backlash from within his own party. Even Sarah Palin weighed in, sticking up for Handel, and leveling criticism at Perdue. While David Perdue was the voice of people who owned Dollar General stores, Palin and Handle were speaking on behalf of people who shop at Dollar General stores.
While wealthy Republican politicians have done their part to stoke the Tea Party rage that has swept across rural and small town America like a wild fire, many of those politicians seem unable to connect to the new GOP base. The Republican Party primaries are no longer Country Club affairs where legions of well-heeled suburban voters with college diplomas dominate the polling booths on election day. The conflict between Blue Blood GOP elites and?working class Tea Party populists pushes?class conflict into Republican Party politics, with consequences that could force Republican candidates to choose between appealing to wealthy donors or catering to?less educated, less affluent voters that are now crucial for success in GOP primaries.
Perdue’s gaffe illustrates that he is out of touch with the modern face of the Republican Party. Touting his college education might have been a winning strategy in 1988, when George H.W. Bush defeated Michael Dukakis 62 to 37 percent among college educated voters. In 1988, the elder?Bush also won with voters who had advanced degrees. However, the Republican base no longer consists of the most educated members of the electorate. ?Post-graduates now vote overwhelmingly Democratic and college educated voters no longer favor?Republicans. The party that once looked upon?Ben Stein, William F. Buckley, and George Will as its spokesmen?now more easily identifies with the pitchfork rebellion and?anti-intellectualism of Sarah Palin, Louie Gohmert, and Ted Nugent.
Some Republican politicians have not quite grasped the changing shape of their party in the past three decades. They still imagine the GOP to be the party that it was in 1988, when Bush-Quayle carried?California and Illinois, decisively winning suburban whitecollar counties around Chicago and running?competitively in creative class enclaves around Hollywood and Silicon Valley while Democrat Michael Dukakis was winning hardscrabble West Virginia.
Now the hardscrabble voters of West Virginia are overwhelmingly Republican, distrustful of liberal politicians and elitists with Ivy League educations. The pitchfork rebels are distinctly anti-elitist although their ire is not directed at billionaires like Charles and David Koch, but rather at other people they perceive to be elitists like CNN anchors, climate scientists, Hollywood actresses, college professors, and perhaps for good measure,?anyone else who lives near the coast in a big urban city.
Perdue’s mistake was that by disparaging Karen Handel’s lack of formal education, he was inadvertently poking fun of the very voters he needs to win a Republican primary in Georgia where less than 30 percent of adults have a college education. Conservative-leaning working class white voters who now see Cliven Bundy, Joe the Plumber, and the duck calling misfits on Duck Dynasty as their vision of a salt of the earth hero found Perdue’s remarks insulting and condescending. Republican politicians who wish to succeed must pay homage to the pitchfork rebels or perish at the polls.
Perdue may still have time to reinvent himself and appeal to both wealthy donors and less affluent voters. After all, George W. Bush, a privileged Ivy League male cheerleader from a wealthy Connecticut home was able to convince GOP voters that he was a good ol’ boy rancher from Texas. However, in order for Perdue to survive the Republican Senate primary in Georgia he must recognize the class conflict that is brewing within the Republican Party. That battle is being waged between angry village whites who picture themselves?storming??the castles of the elite and the castle dwellers themselves, like David and Charles Koch, who feed the GOP politicians with their financial sustenance. Successful politicians in today’s Republican Party must work on behalf of the super wealthy while appearing to be on the side of the villagers who vote for them even as the wealthy donors continue to line their pockets at the villagers’ expense.
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Keith Brekhus is a long-time political activist who resides in Montana. He was a Green Party candidate for Congress in Missouri’s 9th Congressional District in 2002. In addition to writing for Liberal America, he is also co-host for the Liberal Fix Radio Show.
Edited by DH.
