Does Flyover Country Matter?

Not really.

... to quote the Outlaw Josey Wales: "Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining." Which is to say, the Ordinary American understands that the elite view him as immeasurably beneath them. The Ordinary American also knows that the elite exercise far greater influence than he does, so that when he gets screwed over by the government, he naturally suspects that this somehow benefits the elite, and that indeed they have arranged this screw-over. There is, then, a special rage that fills the heart of the Ordinary American when the elite tell him that he is being screwed over for his own good.

...Mr. Jones's disdain for the Bush-era GOP is perfectly understandable -- when did anybody at the Bush White House ever listen to the likes of him? If the Republican coalition is falling apart, it's not his fault, it's theirs. Ken "Cakewalk" Adelman, Henry Paulson and Michael Chertoff never gave a damn about the Ron Joneses of the world, and never will. It is this extreme disconnect between the party elite and its (potential) grassroots constituency that has sapped the vitality from the GOP.

The disconnect expresses itself as ideological, but in reality it is a question of class interest. The influential elite benefit, as a class, by the centralization of authority, since centralization puts power where the elite are best positioned to influence it, and where the Ron Joneses of the world can't touch it. Their access to centralized power assures the elite that, however power is wielded or by whom it is wielded, it can never be wielded much to their detriment.

And if you doubt that thesis, think for only.....oh.....3/10ths of a second about the IRS Code.

Let's hope that Mike Steele and Reince Priebus read the essay.

The Other McCain, of course.