The Redneck Paradox

AWOL Civilization has a good irony detector:

It has become common practice, in polite society, to mock and deride a certain sector of American society. I am speaking of the ordinary working class, particularly those living far in the hinterland, and particularly those with a strong attachment to traditional values.

It has become de rigueur to launch blustering condemnations of this vague yet threatening tribe. People who would never dare utter a word of criticism against a minority feel perfectly at ease disparaging, often viciously, the enemy they alternately refer to as rednecks, white trash, Christian fundamentalists, holy rollers, or crackers. All of these labels blur into an image of the blue-collar guy in the pickup truck.

Of course, the more that “tolerance” is preached as a general ideological position, the more vehement the condemnation of the working class. The blinders of political correctness have shut down the possibility of complaining about, or in some cases even perceiving, the real dangers and the really dangerous people. A substitute was needed at which to redirect the emotional energy.

Not that there aren’t other targets; the same crowd inveighs against corporate America, Israel, Republicans, members of the armed forces, etc. The difference is that this particular target is composed of people who used to be the darlings of the Left. We’re talking about the proletariat! Who would have thought that the Working Man was destined to become an enemy of the People?

[. . .]

One of the reasons for this twist of fate is that the Working Man represents one of the last bastions of traditional American values: he works, goes to church, has a family, owns guns, and believes in liberty (the horror). Also, he is less “educated,” and thus less exposed and susceptible to the neo-totalitarian brainwashing that has rotted away the minds of much of our population. This resistance is resented by the high priests of collectivism.

I realize that economic Marxism has been replaced by cultural Marxism, and local oppressed masses by Third World oppressed masses. But still, is it not ironic that our latter-day Marxists detest the proletariat? It’s the Redneck Paradox.

The Left does not now, nor has it ever, cared about the "common people". The masses are nothing more than an excuse for an elite to place itself in total power over a nation. At the end of the day the only difference between Lenin on the left who did what he did for the "peasants and workers" and Hitler on the right who did what he did to protect the "Aryan race" was that Hitler may well have been crazy enough to actually believe what he said.

H/T: The People's Cube