I grew up in central New Jersey. Mercer County isn’t horse-farm country exactly, but you don’t have to go far to get there. You can drive north up Rte. 206 an hour or so and be right in the heart of Christie Todd Whitman’s turf. Or you can drive east on Rte. 33 toward the Shore and really get a taste for the high-life. There really are people who play polo in their spare time. They’re called Republicans. They’re totally isolated from what ordinary people call ‘hardship,’ and they pretty nearly resemble the assholes at Caddyshack’s Bushwood Country Club. They don’t listen to Rush Limbaugh or watch Glenn Beck, and they have almost exactly nothing in common with Tom DeLay. For the most part, the money these people have was earned by a father or grandfather or great-grandfather, but they do alright letting the magic of compound interest keep them in luxury. Most of them mean no harm.
To answer Josh Marshall’s question, yeah, a lot of these people probably have absorbed some pretty socially conservative views by osmosis. That happens when you attend the Republican National Convention as a delegate and everyone you meet is a redneck. But most of them are too concerned about getting grass-stains to mix with the Hoi Polloi that make up the Republican Party’s base. If their child developed a taste for NASCAR they’d send him to a psychiatrist faster than a Southern Baptist would his gay son.
The more sophisticated of these people…the ones that actually are still conducting international business transactions…got worried enough about our deteriorating status in the world that they actually voted for Obama-Biden over the erratic and bizarre campaign of McCain-Palin. They may not want to pay taxes, but they’re not giving up their European vacations, and they hear from their European clients.
The Republican Party doesn’t seem to want anything to do with these country club Republicans. And I’ll admit that they’re not an attractive lot, and never were. But these elites ran the opposition to the New Deal and Great Society a far sight better than the teabaggers. Don’t you think?
I think that many of those people will become independents. It’s getting to be to embarrassing to admit that you’re a Republican.
Great post. Never knew there was polo in NJ, though I’ve seen the horse territory in the western part of the state and had a few brushes with the horse crowd there. It was their CT counterpart, iirc, who insulted Roosevelt with their worst insult – “class traitor”
Oh yeah, you can play some Polo in the Garden State.
what a great website! and pics of horses for sale, some great looking horses. maybe I should think about something more classy than the Old Paint I aspire to.
These people are busy taking over (i.e. buying) the Democratic Party. In a decade or so, the Democrats will be the party of money and the Republicans will be the party of crazies. Perhaps a Progressive or Liberal Party (the Greens?) will emerge to give some Leftward balance.
The Achilles Heel of the Democratic Party has always been their identification with corrupt big city machines. Once you are used to being on the take for little things, it makes the big sellout of your constituents that much easier.
A nation with any claim to civilization has a tax system that prevents this kind of unearned wealth. They may mean no harm, but they are doing enormous damage to the social fabric nonetheless. They are also a major reason the US has no good political choices.