A month or two ago, Rod Liddle had the audacity to write in The Spectator that the besetting problem of modern civilization is the middle class, while implying that something ought to done about it. Reading the article, I was reminded of an entry made by Harold Nicolson in his diary early in 1939 where he observes, à propos the homogenization of the modern world, “Even revolution is becoming bourgeois.
Throughout the West, particularly the Anglosphere, housing costs are ravaging the middle class. Homeownership, long the key to social mobility, is on the decline, particularly among younger generations and minorities. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, house prices in high-income countries have been rising “three times faster than household median income over the last two decades,” causing the standard of living “to stagnate or decline.” Unlike previous housing crises, this one is not primarily caused by mass displacements due to wars or natural disasters or population growth.
When Joe Biden was elected in 2020, an overjoyed Los Angeles Times boasted that his goal was to “make America California again.” Biden has fulfilled the Times’s vision, if with less than complete success. Over the past few weeks, however, lunchbucket Joe from Scranton has been unceremoniously dumped by the Golden State elite — Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, George Clooney and a passel of tech oligarchs — to be replaced with one of their own, Vice President Kamala Harris. But given the chances of a GOP win this year, the Californians have another favorite in the wings, Governor Gavin Newsom, for 2028. Harris’s elevation and Newsom’s looming challenge are but parts of what can be best described as the Californication of the Democratic Party.
When I was about eleven years old my favorite Barbie was Midge from the California Dream collection. Barbie’s BFF, she had auburn hair and freckles. Midge came with roller skates and a blue visor and I loved her. My sister had California Dream Barbie and we would pop in the Beach Boys Greatest Hits cassette tape and pretend we were living in California for hours upon hours, day after day. We wore that cassette tape out, screaming the lyrics to “California Dreamin’” on cold winter days in Connecticut. I imagined Midge was me, cruising down the boardwalk with the wind in my hair and the sun on my cheeks. My dreams of being a California girl began in those afternoons lost in fantasyland.
Articles about the future and “progress” have been popping up a lot lately, with conversations revolving around the inevitable advancements in technology and automation. Where we should head next is the collective theme. To the metaverse? To outer space itself? But instead of setting our sights on colonizing Mars or creating a perfect alternate reality, we should slow our roll, focus on the here and now and consider whether the frenzied “progress” we’re in such a rush to make has demonstrated any benefit to real-life people. Manufacturing is a good place to start. Let this startling reality sink in, reported in 2017 by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development: Between 2000 and 2010, US manufacturing experienced a nightmare.
My lunch spot in suburban Miami-Dade County, El Palacio de los Jugos — the Palace of the Juices — is the kind of Cuban joint that specializes in monstrous portions served up by some of the finest mamacitas on the planet. The black beans and rice can be overly greasy and the tropical jugos sickeningly sweet, but one frequents the palace for the only-in-Miami atmosphere; the food is incidental. On any given day there, you’ll run into a construction worker chatting up the gals from the Asian massage parlor next door. Young bros roll up in souped-up Hondas and scarf half a dozen empanadas before rushing off to cook up their next low-level con. The Cuban old-timers sit around, as they’ve done for decades, slamming cafecitos and denouncing los comunistas.
