The Ruling Class: How They Corrupted America and What We Can Do About It

I have found Codevilla's book an excellent companion to Charles Murray's "Coming Apart."This book has become even more relevant now post-Trump. It provides cultural insights into our elite that escape many commentators. I am ever so glad I purchased this book.

Codevilla gets it right-as usual. The pernicious results of damaging activities perpetuated by the 'ruling class' have injured this once-free nation-perhaps beyond repair. The problem is age-old: how to get the Ruling Class to actually reduce their own power to allow the rest of us to thrive.This is going to be very difficult to do via the ballot box as the systems in place to perpetuate power make it nearly impossible to put more representative choices in place in sufficient numbers to make a real change. Further, if the entire government were to actually wind up in the hands of a truly representative group (many of whom would quickly decide to cut themselves a slice of the pie, given human nature), the overwhelming numbers of a government bureaucracy populated with wannabe dictators and totalitarians would have to be removed. How do you do that? And how do you get enough of the voting public to see the benefits of dismantling entire departments at federal, state and local levels? Further, what do you do with these hoards of recently-employed, angry former employees who are determined to recreate their jobs and their own personal gravy train?Angelo Codevilla looks at these issues as only he can. Unfortunately, he is likely preaching to the choir: those who are the problem simply will refuse to see their part in it. Certainly worth the read.

"The Ruling Class" is one of the most descriptive yet polite terms for those who lord over us. Overseers, usurpers, Keynesians and Marxists also come to mind. These are the legislative, bureaucratic and oligopolistic collectivists running our lives and trampling our Constitutional freedoms, silencing our voices and lobbying out competition. Time to spread the word about that which we all can observe. It's time to uncloak the elitists wearing emperors' cloth.

I first saw this book mentioned in Chris Muir's webcomic, "Day by Day." I was intrigued and I bought it as a Kindle book.Codevilla's premise is hard to refute: Since the late 19th Century a class has arisen that considers itself superior to the rest of the American public. The first example the author gives is Woodrow Wilson, although I believe an argument can be made to count Theodore Roosevelt among the "Ruling Class."According to Codevilla, the Ruling Class is marked, not only by its attitude of superiority to the rest of us, but also by its contempt for the Constitution. Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt were the most glaring examples pre-Obama, but every Democratic and Republican president we have had in the past 80 years has belonged to that class with one exception: Ronald Reagan. Most members of both parties in both houses of Congress belong to the Ruling Class.The rest of us, the peasants, are the Country Class, for want of a better word.Codevilla sketches out a strategy that must be followed to retake the United States from its rulers and points out the pitfalls that must be avoided, with examples from Thucydides, Aeschylus, and Lenin(!). He concludes the book with the full texts of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.This book is worth reading.

Required reading for anyone wanting to make a change and get back to a country by the people for the people. The most disturbing part of this book was the picture painted of the political ruling class and how because of the apathy too many low information voters we have allowed the ruling class to dominate our country, our government and ourselves. America was established by people who clearly understood that any ruler, regardless of party will eventually become compromised by the position, the associations, the power and benefits. In order for us to take back control of the country we first need to understand what has occurred so we can change it and hopefully try not to repeat it. The truly disheartening piece this book explains is how both parties have manipulated everyone on both sides into believing that they really care about the people and the path of the government when this is clearly not true. They only care for themselves and the other members of the ruling class. Make no mistake it is "The Ruling Class"vs the People and we are losing. Just the same as countries of old that our founding fathers escaped from and came here to start over. We can fix this as American's always seem to figure out a way to fix impossible problems but first we need to understand who the real enemy is and it is the ruling class.

I think Angelo Codevilla is a good writer. And the topic of this book is important, which he covers very well. Normally with most books I only read a few chapters before going to bed each night, but this one I read without setting it aside. It is that good. Sadly I do not have any hope we can change things back to what they were, and this nation is on its way down as a power and maybe as a country. The light of freedom will not shine again for a long time, if ever, afterward. Both political sides at the top rule independent of the "will of the people" and the constitution; and any new crop we send to Washington are quickly neutralized and absorbed. I see no hope short of civil war and no one can say how that would come out. And most likely we would be worse off. When I took many years of Latin long ago I use to wonder why the Romans did not stop the decay and fall of their empire. I now know. For you ask, where have all our promises gone? We traded them for a pocket full of mumbles one by one, which soon will all be gone.

This is not a very voluminous academic study, but a short book describing how the USA (and the same thing is happening to other Western democracies) is drifting from a representative democracy to a rule by a self-appointed elite, by people who consider themselves chosen to rule the nation, because ordinary people cannot comprehend the complexity of the contemporary society. Obviously a conceit by so called intellectual, who are mostly left wing academia, but who nevertheless managed to infect the youth with socialist ideas.Orwell's idea comes to mind: Irrespective how stupid and absurd an idea may be, there are always intellectuals who believe in it.iph