Klass: Grata and Non-Grata Personae in the New Order

In the chaotic world of the current calendar year, some patterns are emerging.

President Trump's hallmark is apparently inconsistency.  At one time I sincerely believed that it was a signature characteristic that was carefully engineered, but it appears that it emerges naturally; in the Brownian Motion of Trump's responses to media reports, the randomness of the editorial angle on the news of the day is amplified by Trump's irrational understanding of those angles.  But another characteristic property is also emerging: prejudice.

There are blocks of the population that Trump likes, and those he does not like, and he is not shy about being found out.  We know he prefers what he views as Traditional Americans : White, Anglo-Saxon citizens (in contrast to immigrants and blacks).  He prefers men around him in the White House, except for departments that he thinks of as being inessential, such as Education.  In fact, he prefers people who stick to any prejudices similar to his own, and if they do not care to defend those prejudices, so much the better!

But, on second glance, there are a good many Hispanics and other ethnicities not considered traditionally WASP in his circle.  What has qualified these people to work for him?  They're affluent.  So you can be a member of a minority, as long as you're rich.  In a recent statement he said that he preferred to put people with money in charge of social services because they're accustomed to handling money.  Unfortunately, his phrasing of this criterion was somewhat tactless.  It boiled down to: do you want to have someone who's never handled a lot of money being in charge of these things?  Of course you don't!

How can we simplify this sorting of people into two groups: those allowed to take government responsibility, and everybody else?  It appears to be based on his assessment of some kind of class. We all have our own idea of what constitutes class in the sense of "That guy has class."  Of course we're talking about president Trump here, so many of us use the word differently than he does.  He has the class of an oil sheikh making a cash offer for your wife.  "How much?  How about $1000? No?  $10,000?  OK, $100,000, and I'll throw in a Mercedes."  So, if you have money, you automatically have class.  Let's spell it Klass, to distinguish it from the usual kind.

People who need Medicaid, evidently, are of the No Klass kind.  In fact, if you don't have a job, you're Low Klass.  If you had to actually apply for a job, you're probably Lower Klass than if you got one from your dad.

Politicians of the last several decades have tried very hard not to appear to be influenced by class politics (except of course economic class politics, which is impossible to avoid; Reagan and Romney had to dog-whistle-ize economic class politics).  When prejudice becomes an open issue in any campaign, the tone of the campaign goes right through the floor, and we've seen that happen.  Even many of president Trump's supporters are not happy with race politics, which gives me hope.

This is all very confusing to me, because I was brought up Methodist (though I am not one now), and according to our trade union rules, gambling was a sin.  This makes it very hard for me to take any sort of Casino King seriously.  Every time I see Trump in the news, I immediately see a slot machine. But I'm trying; this is serious stuff.

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