Has America become irrational? Not since the 1930s have politics been so polarized, from the Tea Party movement on one side of the spectrum to the Occupy Wall Street protesters on the other. Why does the right object so vehemently to government spending? And why does the left attack private capital with parallel passion? The answer lies not in the American psyche, but in the statistics.
America is engaged in class war, but not of the sort one reads about in the mainstream press. The truly indigent - young African-American men, for example, most of whom are now unemployed - have little to do in this war. Large corporations for the most part are bystanders as well; they will make their peace with the victor. This is a war of survival between the productive middle class on one hand, and the dependents of the state on the other.
The Tea Party's aversion to government spending is as pure an expression of rational self-interest as we have seen in American history. Like any new movement, it attracts more than its fair share of oddballs. The fact that a movement led by amateurs continues to wield so much power proves that it has good reason to be there.
The Tea Party is a middle-class movement, older, better educated and wealthier than average, but it is not a party of the very wealthy, who are conspicuously absent among its activists. They know from personal or family experience that taxation is destroying the American middle class. They are approaching retirement, and most of their wealth is in the family home, as it is for the great majority of Americans:
