I saw this on National Review Online this morning:

Jonah is sorely vexed over the deliberate exclusion of the non-PPP in the GOP field, but that misses a much better point about Progressives. If one were to portray the power brokers of America preparing for the election, it would be Elizabeth Warren holding a fundraiser on the Harvard campus, attended by the glitterati of the billionaire class.

Instead, the Left maintains the fantasy that the Pale Penis People, with their Anglo-Saxon culture and stubborn traditionalism operate out of exclusive country clubs, while the revolutionary vanguard bangs on the door in the name of the people. As Sailer is fond of pointing out, even the banal image of the WASP country club is at odds with history.

It is an interesting aspect of the New Religion. Fundamental to Jewish identity is being the outsider and the victim. Jews see themselves not just apart, but excluded from the main. Unsaid is the fear that at any moment the main will take note of the fringe and push it further away from the core or worse. The Southern Poverty Law Center has made a lot of people rich by frightening Jewish widows with stories of secret Nazis living next door.

This otherness has become enmeshed in modern Progressive thought and identity. Elizabeth Warren certainly started the Indian nonsense as a way to advance her career, but she did so by advancing her status as an outsider at the most elite training center of American power, Harvard University. Think of that. In order to reach the top, one must pretend to be on the bottom.

It is a strange delusion. The American Progressive imagines a world where David always beats Goliath, but the results are always the fault of Goliath, thus demanding a rematch so David can beat Goliath again. The WASP ruling cast has been dead for a century, but Progressives keep them alive so they can pick a fight with them. Since the enemy is imaginary, they will always have them as a rallying point.

It’s why I’ve taken to calling the new religion “faculty lounge Kabbalah.” It’s a mysticism based on the trinity of egalitarianism, anti-racism and multiculturalism. It’s not hierarchical or dogmatic. Instead it blends the Jewish sense of otherness and outsiderness with the revolutionary fervor of Rousseau-ism, into a religion of perpetual culture war. Progress is not a linear journey to a promised land. It is a process of perpetual turmoil leading to enlightenment.