Brookings Institute

Did you read that article by Brookings on cutting government excess? Therein lies the problem. They are, despite all their “public policy think tank” propaganda, a leftist organization based in the swamp that sends 96% of their donations to the Democrats. Think all you want, Brookings, but you’re yet another progressive branch of the Democrat party, laying the foundation for more “fundamental change.”  As if that’s a good thing. In reality, you’re merely broadcasting what the left thinks. So when you do what Andrew Breitbart has accused the left of doing all along, ”they divide, they divide,” you pass it off as intellectual research and policy recommendations. This article is especially egregious. In analyzing election results, Brookings divided America along urban and exurban/rural lines, painting the 20% of the country by land mass that voted Democrat as being skilled, better educated, more diverse, and economically more productive, whereas the 80% that voted Republican being older, more white, less skilled, less educated, and “reverting” to “traditional” jobs in manufacturing and resource extraction that command a lesser salary. This kind of rhetoric can easily be read as pitting the intelligent, educated, cosmopolitan, diverse, more productive, youthful democrats against the backward, uneducated, old white folks toiling away in factories, farms, and mines at lesser salaries. What America is “becoming” as opposed to what it was—their words.

Interestingly, the left is all about inclusion unless you’re old, white, conservative, live in rural parts of the country, and don’t work at Google. You know, “those people,” clinging to their guns and religion,” the troglodytes. So said the gender studies major over “their” morning latte, most likely working from home. You want to generalize? It goes both ways, Brookings. But the underlying premise is that the urban coastal elites represent the future and should therefore guide us, is making the assumption that they are somehow omniscient, and being better educated and more productive gives them the right to rule over the ignorant masses that occupy the hinterlands. This is the stuff of Hunger Games, if you require a pop culture reference, and is precisely why the Founding Fathers installed the Electoral College.

Further, divisive rhetoric of this sort harkens back to the last time this country had a stark cultural divide between the progressive industrial north and the agrarian south that remained rooted in the past, where, aside from slavery, economics also played a pivotal role in the conflict. And that didn’t end well for some 852000 Americans. Yes, there are two Americas, and their demographics may be diverging, but each depends on the other, and our differences should not be exploited for political gain; rather, our common goals and aspirations should be celebrated. But as Americans, we have been provided a framework, and unless we choose to honor our Constitution and the rule of law, we are destined to become yet another failed empire. And in an increasingly dangerous world, we best decide who we are.