Sarah Palin Channels Karl Marx

That is not as strange a pairing as you might think. While everyone else is laughing at Palin's stream of consciousness style endorsement of Trump, think about this part of her remarks, courtesy of a transcript on Buzzfeed:

“Trump’s candidacy, it has exposed not just that tragic ramifications of that betrayal of the transformation of our country, but too, he has exposed the complicity on both sides of the aisle that has enabled it, okay? Well, Trump, what he’s been able to do, which is really ticking people off, which I’m glad about, he’s going rogue left and right, man, that’s why he’s doing so well. He’s been able to tear the veil off this idea of the system. The way that the system really works, and please hear me on this, I want you guys to understand more and more how the system, the establishment, works, and has gotten us into the troubles that we are in in America. The permanent political class has been doing the bidding of their campaign donor class, and that’s why you see that the borders are kept open. For them, for their cheap labor that they want to come in. That’s why they’ve been bloating budgets. It’s for crony capitalists to be able suck off of them. It’s why we see these lousy trade deals that gut our industry for special interests elsewhere. We need someone new, who has the power, and is in the position to bust up that establishment to make things great again. It’s part of the problem.

That is a very cogent statement of class interest and class consciousness, in those exact terms. The "donor class" has direct personal financial interests that are being served by the "political class" of both parties. The working class, meanwhile, can't get the system to protect its own direct personal financial interests.

A billionaire like Donald Trump might seem an unlikely candidate to advance those working class interests, but in fact he is a populist and an economic nationalist. Which only makes sense, since he made his billions in the real estate business and real estate cannot be off-shored or done cheaper in China. Trump is a rich guy, but his direct personal financial interests are more closely aligned with those of Sarah Palin than are those of, say, hedge fund managers. The hedge fund and investment bankers are better off backing Hillary.

Class interests ... economic base and political superstructure ... the elite and the non-elite ... the way the system "really works" to serve the elite and screw the underclass. That is classic Marxist stuff. Or better, it's classic James Burnham stuff, straight from his best work, The Machiavellians.

Burnham's view of politics, very briefly: “The primary object, in practice, of all rulers is to serve their own interest, to maintain their own power and privilege. There are no exceptions.” All societies are divided between a ruling class and the ruled, an elite and the non-elite. The primary goal of every ruling class is to maintain and expand its power and privileges. Therefore, the rhetoric used by these ruling classes should be carefully analyzed for what it says about the political elite’s desire to retain power and exclude the non-elites.

Underestimate this Palin-Trump alliance if you wish, but Marx would have understood and agreed.