The North American colonies established in 1608 served the interest of the British government by providing a place to send the undesirables in British society, such as criminals and religious malcontents. Several colonies were established by royal charter which made them a sort of corporation government answerable to London. People who had no future in Europe left for the wilderness of America, and their lives were difficult and often, short.
It took 100 years before wealthy Britons and those of means came to the colonies. Once there was civil society in the Americas, there was the possibility of a ruling class, often by ‘second sons’ in Britain who had no inheritance. These efforts were sometimes successful but their efforts to establish a permanent American aristocracy were blunted by the yeoman farmers who didn’t intend to be serfs or peons or mere tenants on their own land. There were large landowners, and they included George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, but the system of government that emerged in the revolutionary period did not establish generational rights to rule in perpetuity as was common in Europe. The Constitution’s emphasis on individual rights has made the creation of a ruling class difficult and we can see this design at work in American presidential selections.
The rich landowners of the revolutionary period dominated the presidency for the first 50 years of American history, but when they died away, their sons did not take over (John Quincy Adams was a notable exception). Andrew Jackson, elected in 1829, was the first president with no connection to the American revolution.
There were no political dynasties in the 19th century. Abraham Lincoln was from a notoriously modest background, as was Ulysses Grant and Grover Cleveland. Cleveland was the first Democrat to reach the White House after the Civil War and until Donald Trump won a second election, the only president to serve non-consecutive terms.
Donald Trump is an unlikely savior, but he has again proven that the American system of government, built on American culture, resisted the creation of a ruling elite, even if that elite structure is built on the remnant meritocracy as well as generational connections. By securing the Republican nomination for president three times, and defeating two candidates who had the backing of both the Democrats and the elite institutions, he’s broken a system that was coalescing around a sort of secular monarchy that used the government to solidify power in the hands of a few.
It was the year of 1988 that set the stage for the latest turn of the presidential wheel. The Cold War was about to end, and the country selected the VP to Ronald Reagan to take the helm. Reagan and most of his post World War 2 predecessors, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Eisenhower, Truman, were men of limited means. Only John Kennedy was the exception. George HW Bush was the son of a US Senator, and he attended elite schools. He was a genuine war hero in World War 2, but his efforts in business and politics after the war were directly related to his family connections. He had six children, including George W Bush and Jeb Bush.
Bush was succeeded by Bill Clinton, another man from modest means, but Clinton picked Albert Gore, Jr. as his running mate. Gore was the son of a former senator from Tennessee, and the product, like Clinton, of an elite education.
The 2000 election was a contest between George W Bush, the son of a former president and the grandson of a former senator, against Al Gore, the son or a former senator of the same name. Both men were the product of Harvard University. Both were rich. This was an election of dynastic succession and it was settled at the Supreme Court in favor of Bush after a razor thin margin in Florida, where Jeb Bush, the candidate’s brother, was the governor.
In 2008, the Democrats pitted Columbia and Harvest graduate Barack Obama against Hillary Clinton, the wife of Bill Clinton, and a Yale graduate. Obama went on to best John McCain and Mitt Romney, another Harvard graduate and the son of a former governor.
And so, from 1992 through 2016, the presidential contest was between the heirs of political dynasties, Harvard or Yale graduates, wives and sons of former presidents, the sons of former senators and governors, or some combination of each of these strands of elite rule. In most instances their competitors were of the same background. This was an American aristocracy in the making, and both parties were in on it.
And then came Donald Trump. Donald Trump is from a wealthy family but his dad, Fred Trump, earned his money building homes and apartment buildings in the New York city area. Donald Trump went to good, but not elite schools. He went on to attend the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, but it was his father’s business in real estate that set the table for Trump to become wealthy in large scale construction. Trump, in that way, was self-made, and he clearly had an interest and the ability to become famous as a fast-living New York playboy. He was famous for being famous even before social media made it a lot easier. Trump knew how to get and manipulate the press, and he did so until he became the star of an NBC TV show. He was then a genuine TV star and cultural figure.
Which brings us to 2016. Barack Obama was ending his second term, and so there was no incumbent. The situation lured many candidates, including Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush. By this time, the campaign managers and a few consultants had, themselves, become media stars or even journalists. Think James Carville and George Stephanopoulos. Running for president had become a pattern of courting the elites of finance, tech, and culture, and then the donor money would be funneled through the consultants and campaign specialist who would pick the message and manage a largely compliant media. The final touch was the candidate themselves, who needed to be part of a dynastic tradition, so they had the appropriate ‘name recognition value’. They needed to have gone to the same set of elite schools.
Trump was not of the elite set, but he had the name recognition value, and he had the will and the thick skin to run headfirst into this enormous system. He was a fighter and he was fed up.
As the Democrats were forcibly coalescing around Hillary Clinton, the GOP was conducting debates in which Trump was front and center because he was polling so well. It was in the debates that this remarkable moment occurred. The relevant section starts at the 3:00 mark:
The question itself about eminent domain was a set up to get at Trump the developer and paint him as a heartless rich guy. Jeb Bush played this card, seeking to portray Trump as a guy who took the property of a poor widow, but then Trump responded to the loud cheers and boos in the crowd. The next eight years could be seen coming right here. The boos were the donors and consultants who were there to coronate Jeb Bush or someone just like him, and Trump called them out. He was using his own money, he knew the press, he was his own consultant, and he knew the voters were fed up with the phony baloney output of the ‘donor industrial complex’ and their managed messages. Trump was not going to play by the rules that had stood for several decades. He would not be nice. He would call names. He would speak his mind, regardless of the consequences. Love him or hate him, he was authentic.
Jeb Bush had all the old school advantages as did Kamala Harris in 2024 and Trump played them both, plus Hillary Clinton, by appealing over their head to the public using the internet and his own bombastic messaging. Bush, Clinton, and all the rest played by the same elite rules, seeking to stage manage an outcome, and Trump broke them all. In 2024, former GOP VP Dick Cheney, former California GOP governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, liberal congresswoman AOC and the entire Democrat media complex voted the same way, and this is illustrative of the change Trump has brought to the American system. Every bitter clinger voted for Harris in 2024, and they lost.
There is, for now, the possibility of a thaw in the frozen system of American elite politics. Trump the man is flawed, and a temporary figure. He’ll be gone in four more years at the most, but he has confirmed again that the American system resists the formation of a permanent aristocracy, regardless of how they may portray themselves, and he’s currently pushing far younger people into his second administration. His many famous children may seek to form a dynasty around him, but for now, Trump has done the country a favor by breaking the hold of the Bush/Clinton/Harvard/Hollywood/Georgetown system and he’s forced candidates to stop being such fakes. We will not hear from Jeb Bush or Hillary Clinton ever again, and for that, Trump has done fine service to a nation that still offers a pathway to power and wealth to even its most lowly citizens. That it took an unusual figure like Trump to make this happen is particularly amazing, but when the country needed such a figure, that figure emerged. What can he do in a second term? We’ll see, but he’s already a towering historical figure in the history of American presidential politics.
TomRoushOnline 