[WS:] An interesting piece, indeed. The question that I have is "what is the mechanism that caused the American elite to lose control?" The moral rot that you mention may be real, but moral virtues or their absence hardly matter in the real world, as Stalin once observed. What is more, the white petite bourgeois elements that you describe - not just the car dealers, but also small town lawyers and doctors, veterans, white collar workers, blue collar workers, and homemakers - have always been a big part of life in flyover states (aka the "heartland"). And these elements have been threatened before - perhaps even more seriously - by desegregation policies enforced by federal marshals, by the "cultural revolution" of the 1960s etc. Yet, the politicians they elected back then would not even dream of consciously undermining the economic foundations of the American order and not giving a flying fuck about it. So something must have happened that caused this change in behavior.
My hypothesis is a combination of two factors - the antiquated nature of the US electoral system and modern technology allowing unprecedented levels of manipulating this system at the local level. Gerrymandering has always been an integral part of the US electoral system because it is a rational strategy in a first-past-the-post system. However, computer modeling based on solid socio-demographic data (thanks to the Census) moved that gerrrymandering to a different level by creating nearly perfect political market niches in which electoral competition is minimal. The main beneficiaries of this gerrymandering were Republicans and more specifically the Pee Party Republicans.
The difference between then and now is that then the Republicans elected in conservative districts still faced non-trivial competition and could lose elections if they "misbehaved" i.e. fucked up the economy and offended powerful financial elites. Now, the newly gerymandered districts offer less competition and are far safer for the Republicans, which created the phenomenon of Pee Party Republicans. Since their district are "safe", they can "misbehave" and still receive a hero's welcome at home and don't need to worry that their chances of re-election have been compromised.
If this hypothesis is true, throwing support behind Democrats will do little to the financial elites because these Pee Party Repugs will still be the lose cannot bound to cause trouble in turbulent times. A more permanent fix is needed, and that fix is a reform of the electoral system to neutralize gerrymandering. Not long ago, Ralph Nader published a novel fantasizing a "revolution from above" in the US - a bunch of plutocrats fed up with Washington gridlock launching a coup to rationalize that system.
Of course, revolutions from above have many historical precedents - the Meji Restoration in Japan, Kemal Ataturk in Turkey, Vargas in Brazil to name a few - and they have been successful in rationalizing the antiquated political systems. So perhaps the time is ripe for a revolution from above in the US.
-- Wojtek
"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."