Frum cracks the inequality divide

I'd have to see a lot more research before I was convinced by David Frum's argument that high inequality leads to more Democratic voting. What's important about the article, though, is that he presents a political rationale and a substantive argument for Republicans to take inequality seriously:

In short, the trend to inequality is real, it is large and it is transforming American society and the American electoral map. Yet the conservative response to this trend verges somewhere between the obsolete and the irrelevant.

Conservatives need to stop denying reality. The stagnation of the incomes of middle-class Americans is a fact. And only by acknowledging facts can we respond effectively to the genuine difficulties of voters in the middle. We keep offering them cuts in their federal personal income taxes — even though two-thirds of Americans pay more in payroll taxes than in income taxes, and even though a majority of Americans now describe their federal income tax burden as reasonable.

What the middle class needs most is not lower income taxes but a slowdown in the soaring inflation of health-care costs...

Unlike liberals, conservatives are not bothered by the accumulation of wealth as such. We should be more troubled that the poor remain so poor...

Meanwhile, the argument over same-sex marriage has become worse than a distraction from the challenge of developing policies to ensure that as many children as possible grow up with both a father and a mother in the home...

To make progress on inequality and similar issues like climate change where there's a partisan/ideological divide over the extent of the problem, people like Frum need to convince the GOP that it's politically costly not to act.

Comments

[Dave M]

I doubt that people like Frum can convince Republicans of that cost...only a series of impressive electoral defeats will drive that message home. The fact that McCain has been able to stoke the fires of ressentiment against Obama (who neither inherited nor married into wealth and is by politician standards still relatively poor) is one of the most befuddling aspects of this election.

God I wish it were over.

[Jinchi]

Frum confuses diversity with inequality. By his standard "Measured by money income" gated communities are the most equal places in the country and cities, by their very nature, are going to be unequal.

This is not what most people are talking about when they decry inequality in the country. They're worried about access to health care, to decent schools, to representation within the government. They're also worried that their sons are more likely to be questioned and arrested by the police for being on the wrong street at the wrong time simply because of the color of their skin.