This is not the first time @charliekirk11 has used the phrase "ruling class." If you are looking for insight into why people like Kirk - libertarians Tea Party, etc. - worship and promote Trump and call him a movement, this phrase is key. A thread 1/
The article Kirk links to in that Newsweek editorial is a well-read (by such people) article that became a book by Boston College professor Angelo Codevilla published in @amspectator in 2010 2/ independent.org/publications/a…
Codevilla is PhD graduate of the conservative Claremont College, worked on Capitol Hill for many years, also teaching at various places, including conservative think tank at Stanford, ending up at Boston University (sorry, my bad in above tweet) 3/ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelo_Co…
Kirk strongly recommends his article/book in his own 'coming out' manifesto Time for a Turning Point in 2016. 4/ books.google.com/books?id=AQHRD…
Kirk has worked closely with The Heartland Institute early on - a libertarian think tank in Illinois (Kirk' origin state) - and it hosted Codevilla in 2015 5/ blog.heartland.org/2015/09/heartl…
Kirk has tweeted the phrase in recent months and been quoted using it as well in that time frame. Here he in 2018 in Alabama using it 6/ alreporter.com/2018/08/27/rep…
Kirk never goes beyond phrase, as he does with other implicit nods. Audience fills in blanks. Codevilla's book defines it: "educated at prestigious universities and convinced of its own superiority, has everything to gain by raising taxes and expanding?" government. 7/ (Amazon)
Longer quote: class formed system "that exposed them to the same ideas and gave them "remarkably uniform guidance," tastes and habits w/ a "canon of judgments about good and evil, complete with secular sacred history, sins (against minorities and the environment), and saints." 8/
Obviously Trump wasn't candidate in 2010 but you can see how his 'outsider' status aided him with these voters. More from Codevilla: "America’s ruling class speaks the language" of bureaucrats. "It rules uneasily over the majority of Americans not oriented to government." 9/
Ruling class critique is also about higher ed: "But didn’t ours go to Harvard and Princeton...? Didn’t most get good grades? Yes... getting into America’s “top schools” is less a matter of passing exams than of showing up w/ acceptable grades & an attractive social profile." 10/
Codevilla's answer to ruling class is the "country class" who rebel "against the rulers’ defining ideas and proclivities — e.g., ever higher taxes and expanding government... social engineering, approval of abortion." They want "to restore a way of life largely superseded." 11/
While country class hates when others look down at it, it "believes that America’s ways are superior to the rest of the world’s, and regards most of mankind as less free, less prosperous, and less virtuous." 12/
Despite it being pro-America, pro-God Bless America, and mainly pro-GOP, Codevilla claims this class "does not share a single intellectual orthodoxy, set of tastes, or ideal lifestyle. Its sectors draw notions of human equality from different sources," but key is "God's law" 13/
An interesting description of this country class: "For some in the country class Christian radio and TV are the lodestone of sociopolitical taste, while the very secular Fox News serves the same purpose for others." 14/
And we get closer to Trump the "fighter" with this: "The faithful to God sense persecution. All resent higher taxes and loss of freedom. More and more realize that their own agenda’s advancement requires concerting resistance to the ruling class across the board." 15/
Then a Trump prophecy: This class lacks a "political vehicle — and perhaps the coherence to establish one." In short term, it "has no alternative but to channel its political efforts through the" GOP, which is eager for its support. But GOP "does not represent" this class. 16/
So how will it gets its own party or voice? It has to copy the ruling class, for now. "reiterating the litany of his class’s claim to authority, contrasting it with opponents who are either uninformed, stupid, racist, shills for business, violent, fundamentalist, or all..." 17/
In the end, "the ruling class’s greatest difficulty... will be to argue, against the grain of reality, that" its revolution "is sustainable." The country class’s "greatest difficulty will be to enable a revolution to take place without imposing it." 18/
There are many hings in Codevilla's article mocking Trump, but Trump has taken on mantle of the country class, despite reality. And despite his polices again that uphold ruling class - for one, subsidies - people like Kirk love a good fighter because the cause is true. 19/
True Trump backers, who would support his crime on 5th Ave, don't give a shit about Constitutional ideals Codevilla writes on. They believe in freedom, theirs only, though. Maybe GOP will stand up 2 these people & impeach. But they will live on post-Trump resentful as ever. /end
PS I added this thread to my @Medium post collecting threads on Charlie Kirk: medium.com/@mboedy/twitte…
