‘The Revolt Against the Masses’ reveals liberalism’s elitist roots

FILE - In this Feb. 14, 2014 file photo, President Barack Obama pauses while speaking at the House Democratic Issues Conference in Cambridge, Md. Obama has signed a bill Saturday that allows the government to borrow money to pay its debts and a separate measure that restores benefits for military retirees age 62 and younger that had been cut. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

Ever wonder why liberals insist they are fighting for the middle class but look down on working people? Ever wonder why progressives talk endlessly about diversity yet can’t tolerate the slightest dissent from their orthodoxy?

Ever wonder why Barack Obama seems more suited for a European coffee shop than the Oval Office?

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Wonder no more. Fred Siegel’s new book explains all you need to know about liberalism, a political philosophy that, despite good intentions, careened off track after World War I and hasn’t found its way back yet.

“The Revolt Against the Masses” is a brilliantly argued, well-timed case against reactionary snobs who were and remain disgusted with American society. Under the subtitle “How Liberalism has Undermined the Middle Class,” Siegel documents with scholarly detail the arrogance of elites who launched a movement that romanticizes the poor while trying, with distressing success, to dismantle the democratic, capitalist traditions that helped establish the middle class.

“The aim of liberalism’s founding writers and thinkers — such as Herbert Croly, Randolph Bourne, H.G. Wells, Sinclair Lewis and H.L. Mencken — was to create an American aristocracy of sorts, to provide the same sense of hierarchy and ­order long associated with European statism,” he writes.

Click for Michael Goodwin’s complete column.