Dave5

“You better check yo’ self before you wreck yo’ self” – Ice Cube

Petite bourgeoisie (French pronunciation: [pətit(ə) buʁʒwazi], literally ‘small bourgeoisie‘; also anglicised as petty bourgeoisie) is a term that refers to a social class composed of semi-autonomous peasants and small-scale merchants. They are named as such because their politico-economic ideological stance in times of stability is reflective of the proper haute bourgeoisie (high bourgeoisie or upper class). In regular times, the petite bourgeoisie seek to identify themselves with the haute bourgeoisie, whose bourgeois morality, conduct and lifestyle they aspire and strive to imitate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petite_bourgeoisie

Two items (below) crossed my path this week and a bunch of things fell into place. There is a particular confluence of wealth, need for status, ideological hypocrisy and precariousness that the Petite bourgeoisie represent in the Western world at present that matches the stuff we’re seeing. They are not only the keyboard warriors who rant on Twitter but they also have the resources to feel like their actions don’t have consequences. They can be as racist and msogynist as they like. They are the one who rant about the “unfairness” and “racism” of programmes that target the poorest brown people. They are the ones who rant about removing car parks… they are the ones who vote in Trump, Farage and Seymour.

“Those most enthralled with Donald Trump were not at the very bottom — the illiterate, the hungry,” she writes. Rather, Trump’s biggest fans could be found among “the elite of the left-behind,” meaning people “who were doing well within a region that was not.”

https://www.vox.com/politics/369797/trump-support-class-local-rich-arlie-hochschild

It is also the Petite bourgeoisie who lust for the Telsa driving in status goals that keep Elon Musk in business – socially and financially.

For me this is the major “how the fuck did we get here?” puzzle piece dropping into place. It is also a giant warning sign. If the hatred of Jacinda Adern is anything to go by… Harris doesn’t stand a chance in hell of winning the election and we’re in for a Stephen Miller guided holocaust in the US.

I write this as a member of the Petite bourgeoisie…