The Way Back

"The promise of America is that, with ambition and hard work, anyone can rise to the top. But now the promise has been broken, and we've become an aristocracy where rich parents raise rich kids and poor parents raise poor kids. We've been told that the changes are structural, that there's nothing we can do about this. But that doesn't explain why other First World countries are beating us hands down on the issue of mobility. What's different about America is our politics. An ostensibly progressive New Class of comfortably rich professionals, media leaders, and academics has shaped the contours of American politics and given us a country of fixed economic classes. It is supported by the poorest of Americans, who have little chance to rise, an alliance of both ends against the middle that recalls the Red Tories of parliamentary countries."