The American Déclassé

     Toward the end of the 19^th century, the French introduced the word déclassé to describe people who had fallen in social status.  The déclassé might include aristocrats who lost their titles or their estates for one reason or another.  They might also be middle class who lost their businesses, white-collar employment, savings, and homes.  They were reduced to the tattered trappings but no longer the substance of their former comfortable lifestyles.  They felt victimized and marginalized and often blamed others for their own misfortunes.
     Many Germans experienced a middle class déclassé in the 1920s due to hyper-inflation that wiped out long-term savings.  Then they suffered further from the Great Depression and deflation.  Financial reverses along with personal loses and the humiliating defeat in World War I caused many German déclassé to turn to hyper-nationalism, including German racial superiority as expressed by the Nazis.
     Now the United States has its own déclassé.  They were used to middle class standards of living until the Great Recession of 2007.  Some were upper- and middle-middle class who were overextended in debt, particularly inflated home mortgages.  When the financial and real estate bubble burst, many lost their houses, which were their principal assets as well as their homes.  Others lost their businesses and investments, too.  Meanwhile, white collar workers lost their jobs to process innovations and business cost reductions.  After decades of wages and benefits that lifted so many factory workers from the working to the middle class, millions of industrial jobs were eliminated by factory automation, offshore production, and layoffs by companies faced with reduced demand for their goods and services.  For many, the upward spiral of the American Dream had suddenly reversed its course downward.
     Particularly devastated was the new working poor, broadly defined, of people who could not find any jobs, or took jobs that paid significantly less than their previous jobs, or went into retirement without pensions and adequate savings.  They found themselves on the wrong end of the growing income-wealth-education gap in the U.S.  Having once enjoyed a middle-class standard of living, they now had to struggle to just make ends meet.  If they still bought the things they were used to, they went more heavily into debt.  Many became very bitter about their losses and retreated into social isolation and alcohol and drug abuse.  Some turned outward and blamed various other people, including Wall Street fund managers and bankers, the one-percenters, the Federal government that seemed pleased to help the chronically poor but not the working poor, and illegal immigrants who allegedly exploited public assistance programs.  In addition there was a growing fear of public violence and acts of foreign-generated terrorism.
     Some of the American déclassé personified their anger in President Barack Obama and railed against the well-educated and well-paid elites who appeared to dominate the Democratic Party.  They hated when the President lectured them about large corporation bailouts (but none for the “little guys”), mandatory healthcare insurance (which for some people resulted in unwanted coverage with unwanted premiums and new taxes), race relations, and global climate change.  What about good jobs with good pay?  What about people who were not working but getting public handouts?  What about illegal immigrants from Mexico?  What about Muslim terrorists shooting and bombing innocent Americans?
     Then came the elections of 2016…. 

© 2017 Stephen M. Millett (All rights reserved)