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and Soltan isn't. For the life of me, I can't figure out her
politics, but she's pretty fabulous, so who gives a damn?"
(Tenured Radical)

Friday, September 01, 2006

Snapshots from Home
A Regular University Diaries Feature


The computer still works, but the rest of the power in the house has just gone out -- Ernesto's here in earnest, I guess... GWU has issued warnings and suggestions for students as they move into their dorms during what looks to be a nasty storm ...

I can't really see my keyboard -- good thing my mother insisted I learn to touchtype when I was fourteen... It's dark and getting darker; and it gets really dark in Garrett Park, where you can't see the sky for the trees.

I'm all alone, too -- Mr. UD's in Philadelphia, at the American Political Science Association convention... Joyce-Themed Spawn is with Zuzu, her Slovakian friend, who lives down the street...

But before you really begin to pity me, huddled alone in a dark house, consider how well-heeled I am nonetheless!


The three most prosperous large counties in the United States are in the Washington suburbs, according to census figures released yesterday, which show that the region has the second-highest income and the least poverty of any major metropolitan area in the country.

Rapidly growing Loudoun County has emerged as the wealthiest jurisdiction in the nation, with its households last year having a median income of more than $98,000. It is followed by Fairfax and Howard counties, with Montgomery County not far behind.


That's from the Washington Post. And here's Thomas Frank, in the New York Times:



When you view the world from the satisfied environs of Washington — a place where lawyers outnumber machinists 27 to 1 and where five suburban counties rank among the seven wealthiest in the nation — the fantasies of postindustrial liberalism make perfect sense. The reign of the “knowledge workers” seems noble.

Seen from almost anywhere else, however, these are lousy times. The latest data confirms that as the productivity of workers has increased, the ones reaping the benefits are stockholders. Census data tells us that the only reason family income is keeping up with inflation is that more family members are working.

Everything I have written about in this space points to the same conclusion: Democratic leaders must learn to talk about class issues again. But they won’t on their own. So pressure must come from traditional liberal constituencies and the grass roots, like the much-vilified bloggers. Liberalism also needs strong, well-funded institutions fighting the rhetorical battle. Laying out policy objectives is all well and good, but the reason the right has prevailed is its army of journalists and public intellectuals. Moving the economic debate to the right are dozens if not hundreds of well-funded Washington think tanks, lobbying outfits and news media outlets. Pushing the other way are perhaps 10.


Longtime readers know that I have nothing in principle against Frank's effort to get the rest of the country outfitted with pitchforks and sent to Garrett Park. But I think he's wrong to assume that "Democratic leaders" are going to want to "talk about class issues." I've lived here a long time and met scads of Democratic leadership types -- in politics, academia, journalism, think tanks, etc. -- and the problem is that their class is absolutely equivalent to the Republicans' class.

Bill and Hillary vacation on Nantucket. Then there's John Kerry.

These are all happy satisfied rich people. You don't stir up class resentment among such people, whatever their theoretical ideological commitments may be.

In a way, Frank's comment admits as much; he says that class war will have to come from the grassroots. Then why is he writing in the New York Times? If something's the matter with Kansas, why isn't he publishing his opinion pieces in their newspapers?

E.J. Dionne, in the Washington Post, has a similar problem. He too tries to lay down some populist rhetoric in a recent column about economic inequality in America:

The census had some very good news for the well-to-do. The top fifth of American households received 50.4 percent of all income last year, the highest proportion since 1967, when the Census Bureau started following that trend. The biggest gains were concentrated in the top 5 percent.

"The economy is growing, and someone is getting the growth," said Sharon Parrott, a senior analyst at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. "So now we know who it is."

President Bush and the Republican Congress, take a bow: You took power to make the well-off even better off, and you have succeeded brilliantly.


It would have been far more honest - and probably politically more productive - for Dionne to have ended this piece with a little honesty and a little introspection ["In another big home sale, Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne and wife Mary T. Boyle bought a shingle-and-stone Colonial in Bethesda’s Glen Echo Heights for $1.6 million. The 2004 house has ten-foot ceilings on the first floor, three fireplaces, and an elevator."], as in we have met the enemy, and he is us.