They seem to have accepted the Republicans’ pejorative definition of economic class warfare as an un-American evil. As Warren Buffet points out, middle-income Americans ought to be protesting a system in which billionaires like him pay a third to a half of the 33% tax rate of Buffet’s secretary.

In fact, nonviolent class struggle over income distribution has a long and beneficial history in this country and most other industrial democracies. Starting with the rise of the Populist Party in the late 19th century, continuing into the Progressive Era and the New Deal, grabbing for and getting a bigger slice of the economic pie for wage earners has been a major stabilizing force in American democracy. We are now racing in the direction of income polarization and the political instability that inevitably accompanies the contraction of the middle class and a concentration of wealth within a tiny minority…

So how did we get to this point? Something is clearly wrong with Kansas and the rest of Middle America when it comes to letting economic self-interest guide their voting.