- Sep 14, 2011
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Jonathan Chait on the Democrats' Class-War Triumph -- New York Magazine
(They only called it a class war when we fought back. )
When President Obama took the stage at McCormick Place in Chicago well after midnight, we were all too wiped out with joy or depression or Nate Silver auto-refresh fatigue to pay careful attention to the speech the newly reelected president delivered. The phrase that lingered in most of our sleepy ears was the reprise of his career-launching invocation of the United States as being more than red and blue states. So soaring, so unifying. But those words were merely the trappings of magnanimity draped over an argument that was, at its core, harsher than the one he had regularly delivered during the campaign.
The telling phrase came when Obama turned away from the thank-yous and patriotic hymnals into the guts of his remarks. Despite all our differences, he transitioned, most of us share certain hopes for Americas future. The key term here is most, as opposed to allmost meaning less than 100 percent and possibly as little as 51 percent. He attributed to most Americans a desire for great schools, a desire to limit debt and inequality: a generous America, a compassionate America.
(They only called it a class war when we fought back. )