In a stunning repudiation of the establishment, Americans gave real estate magnate Donald Trump four more states on Tuesday. He now has 652 delegates and needs 585 more to win the Republican nomination.
If you want to understand the upset that is occurring in American politics, you need to read Lawrence Lindsey’s new book, “Conspiracies of the Ruling Class: How to Break Their Grip Forever,” just out from Simon & Schuster. Lindsey and I served in the White House at the same time under both presidents Bush, and his was always a voice worth hearing and an opinion worth considering.
Lindsey uses the term “ruling class” to describe the establishment that is generating so much anger among voters today. He provides a history of the ruling class from America’s beginnings to the present. He does not mention Trump, Democratic Sen. Bernie Sanders or other presidential candidates. But the anger he describes has resulted in Trump’s unprecedented victories.
President Obama has used executive action to modify Obamacare, at the same time that he has prevented Congress from making any changes. Lindsey’s book could not have come at a better time. Trump is distancing himself from the ruling class by his behavior and picking up angry voters in the process. He is trying to shock people by making statements that are foreign to normal politicians. Politicians don’t belittle women or Sen. John McCain’s heroism. Trump openly disregards the rules. The other non-politicians in the race, neurosurgeon Ben Carson and former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, behaved in a more normal fashion but did not garner sufficient support to stay in the race.
Escape from the ruling class
America was born in anger against the British ruling class. The Founding Fathers suffered from British directives, such as the infamous Stamp Tax, and constructed a system of checks and balances with the goal of flattening power and broadly distributing it.
John Adams criticized laws that were, according to Lindsey, “so broad, so vague, and their enforcement so dominated by political correctness, that they mock the concept of the rule of law.” History repeats itself. Obamacare, a prime example of such a law, has been changed over 40 times. The Environmental Protection Agency has broadened its jurisdiction over America’s water far beyond the original navigable waters test in the Clean Water Act.
John Hancock’s wine, along with his boat, named “Liberty,” were seized because he was suspected of smuggling wine, even though none was ever found. That’s similar to the asset seizure that goes on throughout the United States now, when, according to Lindsey, “it seems that your money is theirs for the taking even if you are innocent.” Lindsey cites the case of Lyndon McLellan, a convenience-store owner in Fairmont, N.C., whose life’s savings, $107,000, were stolen by the Internal Revenue Service in 2014 even though he was charged with no crime. The IRS, facing intense pressure, ended up dismissing the case.
The Founding Fathers were so concerned about abuse of power that the first American government was not given enough central authority to operate. The second government was limited by the Constitution, which was written in plain English so everyone could read it.
Is fight ahead over Garland high court nomination? (6:14) The Constitution contained transparent rules by which the government operated. Its enumerated powers were designed to prevent abuse by the ruling classes. It limited what the government could do and gave states the power to act on their own. The end result was layers of defense against government becoming too big or powerful.
The end of limited government
That system worked for a while, but Lindsey shows how it has disintegrated. When the government limits competition, the executive branch exceeds its power and the judicial branch abandons the Constitution, the ruling class wins. The core ruling class principle is that normal people cannot manage their own lives; only government can do it for them.
The modern ruling class believes that “they are superior beings placed on earth to be its rulers.” Now they call themselves “progressives.” Their talk about “social justice” is an attempt to manipulate people through coercion. They justify their control of most societal institutions through their alleged intellectual superiority. They believe in silencing their opponents by not allowing them to speak on campuses, as happened to Somali-born American scholar Ayaan Hirsi Ali when she was invited to Yale University.
Today, ruling class members Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, and Attorney General Loretta Lynch want to use the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) to silence those who do not believe that climate change is man-made. Lynch has referred the case to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s criminal division.
Ruling class member President Obama has used executive action to modify Obamacare, at the same time that he has prevented Congress from making any changes. The program was not ready, so he changed the start date to 2015 from 2014. For some small businesses, he changed it to 2016. The president is taking his own road on immigration enforcement, even though he said in a Univision Town Hall in March 2011: “With respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations through executive order, that’s just not the case, because there are laws on the books that Congress has passed.”
Voters protest the ruling class
Lindsey points out that despite its power grab, the ruling class has not been that successful. That’s one reason voters are angry. In the name of political correctness, it has ruined America’s public school and higher education systems. Schools hire math teachers who have majored in education, not math teachers who have degrees in math. Despite attempts at redistribution, the ruling class has failed to reduce income inequality. It has mismanaged the country’s finances, leaving young people with no hope of collecting Social Security.
The book could use an index, and some editor should have told Lindsey that “ruling class” takes a singular verb, not a plural one. But those are minor quibbles.
“Conspiracies of the Ruling Class” is immensely valuable because it shows clearly why people are fed up with status quo and political correctness, and are rising up to throw off the establishment shackles, like the first Americans revolting against Britain. Time will tell if history will repeat itself and we will succeed.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/donald-trump-leads-the-uprising-against-the-ruling-class-2016-03-17?siteid=YAHOOB
