The Yankee Crackup

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Back in the 80’s, Reagan was hailed as a brilliant politician for winning over working and middle-class ethnics, the so-called Reagan Democrats. The Archie Bunkers who voted Democrat out of instinct suddenly switched parties and voted Republican. Only old timers talk about the Catholic vote or white ethnics anymore, but within living memory, they existed and mattered.

That was a big development primarily because it signaled a radical change in the party coalitions. The old Democrat coalition of working class northern whites, southern whites, blacks and the old Yankee ruling elite was no more. The South was going Republican and the white working class appeared to be following suit. It’s why so many swing state Democrat pols changed sides. They followed their voters to the new party.

Something happened in the 1990’s that arrested what should have been a long running ruling majority coalition. The old Yankee elites started jumping to the GOP side, joining the Rockefeller Republicans to take control of the party. The party of Reagan became the party of Bush.They made all the noises the Reagan coalition expected, but they were Bush men through and through. Just look at the House leadership and you don’t see a bunch of Evangelical Southerners.

Where we have been for the last two decades is a country with a ruling class largely based in the traditionally dominant region of the nation, the Northeast. The areas settled by old Yankees, along with the Midland areas dominate both parties and they take turns cobbling together ruling majorities from the other bits of the country. The Yankee-Midland coalition came out in force for Obama, while the Midland-Southern coalition came out strong in the midterms. The reverse occurred in the Bush years.

What seems to be happening is the Yankee-Midland coalition is blowing apart. I thought about this while in Massachusetts recently. In a Waltham restaurant, the TV’s started showing Trump’s visit to Norwood Mass. The whole place turned its attention to the show. I heard more than a few people cheering Trump. Friends I was with were all very interested in the Trump phenomenon.

That does not make much sense as we are given to believe that it is those xenophobic racists in the Deep South propelling his campaign. Just the other day, National Review ran a piece about how Trump is George Wallace. To Southerners, George Wallace no longer resonates. Most people in the South don’t remember the guy, probably confusing him with the black comic.

To political types from the Northeast, George Wallace is right up their with Bull Connor and the Confederate Flag. He’s a symbol of bad whites throughout time and place. In other words, this comparison is not for the benefit or detriment of bad whites. It is a one group of good whites signalling to other good whites that they are playing with fire. The hysterical response by Conservative Inc to Trump is not because he is a fringe xenophobe. It’s because he speaks for a wing of the coalition that appears to be going heretic.

Before Trump came along, there were rumblings from the other side of the Conservative ruling junta that things were not well. Reform Conservatives are warmed over Rockefeller Republicans from the pre-Reagan era. They have been agitating for a new direction where they shed the yahoos, with their boom-sticks, sky gods and limited government nonsense. They see Trump as a chance to wrench control of the movement and the GOP.

The thing that never gets discussed is this. Trump is a New Yorker. He has lived his life in a city that is majority non-white. Lumping him in with the racist crackers from the south is laughable. When he speaks, lots of regular people in the northeast hear one of their own. In contrast to the acrylic robots they see running both parties, Trump is a regular guy, just with a few billion dollars and a super model wife. He’s a guy a large number of people look up to as a good example.

To extend this out further, the inspiration for Trump on immigration is none other than Ann Coulter, a WASP princess from Connecticut. She was enthusiastic about Romney, simply because he was making the right noises on immigration. The great undiscussed truth of modern times is it is Yankee New England that is the most hostile to immigration. They are fine with the Hindu chemist or the Syrian engineer, but they have zero interest in the little brown guys you see loitering at the local Home Depot.

It’s hard to know how this plays out. The action has been on the GOP side, but the Democrats are having a nervous breakdown of their own. The old Yankee strongholds are experiencing another exodus, similar to what happened in the late 70’s and 80’s. Taxes are an easy culprit, but it could be culture. The middle class in these areas have simply grown disgusted with their ruling elites, the same ones they are revolting against today by supporting Sanders and Trump.

Maybe it something else, but it appears Yankeedom is heading for a crackup and taking the political class with them.

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Comments (Historical)

The comments below were originally posted to thezman.com.

11 Comments

Straw Wars The Z Blog #6693 September 27, 2015 8:47 pm 0
[…] no predictions on whether this will succeed. This is a weird time for the GOP. I called it the Yankee Crackup because the ruling coalition is at war with itself in ways we have not seen in a very long time. […]
BillyPilgrim #6445 September 9, 2015 12:52 pm 0
Midlands? Are you writing about Virginia thru the Carolina’s? Mid-west fly-over county?I’ve been a follower for a couple of months, and appreciate your unique take, but this time the terminology leaves me guessing. BillyPilgrim
thezman #6446 September 9, 2015 1:18 pm 0
Here’s a handy map done by JayMan. The Pennsylvania colony was the start and those people moved west into the Midwest and even as far south as Texas.
Ganderson #6436 September 9, 2015 7:47 am 0
I am a little confused about the “Old Time Yankees”- aren’t they mostly the old wasps or other Northern Europeans who made up the Rockefeller wing of the party. The Dem elites in New England ( Kennedys excepted, of course) were mostly the academics. The Irish were powerful and Democrat, but in a much more normal person way.
thezman #6441 September 9, 2015 9:22 am 0
I think of “Yankee” as culture, more than ethnicity. Te Irish who poured into Boston did not change the culture substantially. They modified it around the edges, but they mostly assimilated. The same is true of Italians into New York, which was always a hodgepodge of people reflecting the Dutch permissiveness of the founding population. Those Italian Catholics quickly became socially liberal.So when I write about Yankee culture, it’s in the broadest sense of the term, incorporating both ideological extremes. The debate between Calvin Coolidge and Jane Addams could occur in the parlor over tea. That’s because culturally and temperamentally they are the same. A debate between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams was a rock fight in the yard because the two men may as well have been form different planets.The people in charge today are from the Northeast, encompassing the Midlands, New York and New England. Their colonies in the West are dominant in those areas. The big fight we are seeing is between the factions within this ruling coalition. The South, Appalachia and the Southwest are just observers. At least for now.
Kathleen #6434 September 8, 2015 9:47 pm 0
Fine with the Syrian engineer? Not if he’s a Moslem I’m not. Some of the “brown guys loitering at Home Depot” may one day assimilate. Or maybe not, but maybe their kids will. Moslems do not assimilate and their spawn often turn out more extreme than the parents. Do not allow yourself to be fooled by the level of education attained, or the professions some of them enter. In the end we non-Moslems are just a bunch of kuffar to them, to be used, abused, and ultimately conquered. Islam allows them to lie to us and live “peacefully” among us until their population is large enough and the time is right for them to assert themselves and their belief that Islam is superior to any other political system. And then watch as those assertions become actions which endanger us all.
UKer #6440 September 9, 2015 8:39 am 0
You are right, Kathleen. In the end, even the most moderate muslims must by the nature of their faith, follow whatever their leaders say, no matter what the cost. If the mullahs say jump and come down with heavy boots right on top of what’s underneath, the faithful’s only question is how high do we jump?
Kathleen #6447 September 9, 2015 3:39 pm 0
I really wish I weren’t, UKer. I know too much about Islam. It’s a situation where knowing the truth does not set you free but brings anxiety and dread, yet one cannot “unknow” these things. And your country and the rest of Europe are further down this road than we. But never fear, I’m sure our Dear Leader intends to play catch-up. I read today that Secretary of Surrender John Kerry says we’ll be taking in more Syrian refugees. And seeing as they can’t cross the border from their country to ours, our government is only too happy to fly them here courtesy of the American taxpayer! Talk about theatre of the absurd. Isn’t forced cultural enrichment just grand?
james wilson #6444 September 9, 2015 11:20 am 0
Islam is inbreeding’s bitch, and visa versa.
Roy Lofquist #6432 September 8, 2015 9:18 pm 0
Something is happening but you don’t know what it is – do you, Mr. Jones. Trump is no more outre, in a political sense, than was Obama. Both Walter Russell Mead with his blue model analysis and Angelo Codevilla with his ruling class/country class dichotomy offer insights. Conventional wisdom is until it isn’t.
thezman #6433 September 8, 2015 9:37 pm 0
Having lived in New England and the South, with stops in between, the differences are the filter through which I tend to view everything. These ethno-cultural plates shift around and the parties and institutions ride in top. We tend to look at these shifts in the short window of our lives, but the cycles probably cover multiple generations. It very well may be that the old Reagan coalition, which was pretty much the FDR coalition without the blacks, is reforming despite the interregnum of the Bush years.


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