July 19, 2016 --

Only recently, LPR noticed the William McGurn column in the Wall Street Journal, February 2, this year, quoting this observation by Ed Goeas, a GOP strategist: “’The middle class believes the rich get the benefits, the poor get the programs, and they [the middle class] get stuck with the bill.’” Wasn’t this the way the Top One Percent, in feudal days, held power: allying with the lowest class against the upstart middle?

LPR has a hunch that the Middle Class/Neo Feudalist split informs partisan realignment in 2016. Consider, yet again, the opening line in Federalist No. 57 – taking note of the “ambitious sacrifice of the many to the aggrandizement of the few.” What else was the essence of feudalism if not this kind of sacrifice and this kind of aggrandizement?

Consider the Never Trumpers who demand a “free trade” policy. For LPR, “free trade” is nothing more than code for “send jobs overseas” and throw a few government-sourced crumbs to the newly-jobless.

And consider, too, the leaders of the GOP anti-Trump effort. Are any of these political insiders considered part of Middle America – let alone on food stamps? Of course not. How far will these GOP Never Trumpers go in their Alinsky-ite anti-Trump venom? They deem it unethical, immoral to vote for Trump. Apparently, now, they are also contending it is anti-Christian to vote for Trump.

Never Trumper Peter Wehner, in his New York Times op-ed slot, July 5, asserted that Trump “embodies a worldview that is incompatible with Christianity.” So much for the idea that in the United States we have separation of church and state.

Wehner went on to ascribe to Donald J. Trump the mindset of the Never Trumpers – both right and left: “If you disagree with or oppose him, you are not merely wrong. You are worthless, stripped of dignity, the object of derision.”

Consider this from David McCullough, one of the anti-Trump historians quoted by Jim Dwyer, in The New York Tmes, July 13: calling Trump a “monstrous clown with a monstrous ego, with no experience, never served his country in any way—it’s just crazy’….” And what is that if not derision seeking to strip Trump of worth and dignity?

Imagine the fury of the Neo-Feudalists should Donald J. Trump defeat Hillary Clinton, come November 8, and by a landslide, no less. Another historian cited by Dwyer, William E. Leuchtenberg, professor emeritus at the University of North Carolina, complained that Trump “’has no sense of the American past.’”

LPR suggests to the Historians Against Trump Earnestly (HATE) that they get to work with articles that, citing our past, urge the members of the Electoral College to follow their conscience when they cast their ballots for the president. Should the issue go to the Supreme Court, the Court could well divide 5-4 in favor of votes of conscience by the electors, with the opinion by anti-Trump Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

LPR recalls that Hillary Clinton wanted to put an end to the Electoral College method of electing the president. How ironic if the Electoral College should salvage her quest for the presidency, notwithstanding the votes of the (diverse) middle class.