Class Struggle may not be a (totally) dead idea in America.

Jim Webb is an interesting fellow. He recently won the seat in Virginia that gave the Senate to the Democrats. Yet because he used to be a Republican (in the Reagan years), he’s been accused of political opportunism. Far from it.

For one thing, he had enough guts and intelligence to predict the current situation in Iraq. (see his opinion piece in the NYTimes which he wrote in March 2003) at a time when you could pass for a quasi-traitor for even suggesting there was no need to go to war.

Today, he wrote another excellent (but rather idealistic) opinion piece published by The Wall Street Journal which offers in a few words a great analysis of the Republican strategy in the last few years:

The politics of the Karl Rove era were designed to distract and divide the very people who would ordinarily be rebelling against the deterioration of their way of life. Working Americans have been repeatedly seduced at the polls by emotional issues such as the predictable mantra of "God, guns, gays, abortion and the flag" while their way of life shifted ineluctably beneath their feet. But this election cycle showed an electorate that intends to hold government leaders accountable for allowing every American a fair opportunity to succeed.

The title of his piece itself is quite provocative, Class Struggle and it almost sounds dangerously… leftist, if not, if I may use this dirty word, “socialistic”.