In the heart of Wall Street, a new statue is causing quite a kerfuffle. Sponsored by State Street Global Advisors, one of the world’s largest asset-management firms, the “Fearless Girl” was installed earlier this year to stand in front of the famous “Charging Bull” in Bowling Green Park, just a short walk from the New York Stock Exchange.
Arturo Di Modica, the sculptor of the Charging Bull, has asked for Fearless Girl to be taken down. This prompted public defenses on Twitter from Mayor Bill de Blasio and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, two of the nation’s most prominent progressives, who celebrated the new statue as a statement of feminist resolve.
What a strange “issue” for progressives to fuss over! Conservatives do not have a dog in this hunt, but it is still a fascinating illustration of how the political left has evolved over the last century: What was once a farmer-labor coalition is increasingly Wall Street-friendly and centered around upper-middle-class cultural anxieties.
When Woodrow Wilson, the first progressive president, was reelected in 1916, his coalition was forged by those who worked with their hands. The farmers of the Midwest and the workers in the big cities came together to give him a narrow victory, which would serve as a template for the Democratic party for the next two generations. Franklin Roosevelt’s 12 years in office were anchored by the farmers and the labor unions. So also was Harry Truman’s narrow victory in 1948.
But that started to change in the 1960s. The country grew prosperous in the postwar era, membership in labor unions peaked and then declined, and a new left began to grow, first on college campuses and then in the suburbs. Political liberalism transitioned into an alliance between racial and ethnic minorities and upwardly mobile, college-educated whites. The loyalties of the working class fractured along racial and ethnic lines—with minority workers voting Democratic and white workers voting Republican.
And so it was in 2016 that Uniontown, Pennsylvania, voted overwhelmingly for Republican Donald Trump, while Westchester, New York, went for Democrat Hillary Clinton.
The self-interests of upscale white liberals are not tied to better wages and working conditions. Unlike the coal miners of eastern Kentucky in the 1930s, they are not stuck in dangerous, low-paying, dead-end jobs. Their priorities, accordingly, are different. In solidarity with unions and minority workers, upscale white liberals support such initiatives as the $15 minimum wage, but their own liberalism emphasizes issues like gay rights, abortion, and environmentalism.
In many respects, these issues have substantive implications—for instance, whether to fund Planned Parenthood and whether to ratify the Paris Agreement on climate change. But there is a decided emphasis these days on manners and symbols among upscale liberals.
College campuses, for instance, have become a briar patch of rules and norms regarding what kind of speech is legitimate and what is unacceptably déclassé. And Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign was premised, in part, on electing the first female president—something that would be of direct material aid to precisely one woman, Hillary Clinton herself, and only a symbolic “win” for the rest of womankind.
It is fair to say that conservatives have fallen prey to this tendency as well. I have certainly read more articles from conservative webzines bemoaning transgenderism than I have ever met transgender people, for instance. Perhaps it is a consequence of the fact that since life is so much easier now than it was even 40 years ago, we have time to idly debate issues that substantively affect only a handful of individuals. Our forebears were too busy putting food on the table to fuss over intersectionality and the supposed dangers of transgender bathrooms.
These changes have had important implications on the politics of the corporate boardroom. Seventy years ago, the vanguard of the progressive left was pushing nationwide strikes by industrial unions after World War II. The intention of the labor-left was to force the great industrial magnates to renegotiate the distribution of the national income. Now, however, the vanguard of the left is posing for pictures behind a statue paid for by a firm that manages $2.5 trillion in wealth.
Big business has been the big winner. It is substantially easier for big business to make peace with EMILY’s List and the Human Rights Campaign than it was to cut a deal with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers or the United Mine Workers. Barack Obama may have been the most liberal president since Harry Truman, but there is no way Truman would have been comfortable taking a $400,000 speaking invitation from bond firm Cantor Fitzgerald, as Obama just did. And if Truman had, “Give ’em Hell” Harry probably would have lived up to that nickname.
And of course, the Republican party remains decidedly in the camp of big business. Advancing the interests of business has been the party’s raison d’être since it freed the slaves back in 1865, and remains so to this day. One need look no further than the 2014 farm bill, passed through the House despite the fact it was stuffed full of goodies for big agribusinesses, and the Export-Import Bank, which most Republicans support despite the fact it is mainly a way for the American taxpayer to subsidize Boeing.
It seems, then, that no matter which way the American people vote, big business is going to do just fine. That’s not the way it always was, and that is not a positive development. It is one thing to support a capitalistic system, as conservatives do. It is quite another to back a concentration of capital that is facilitated, at least in part, by government regulations, favors, and subsidies—which is closer to what we have.
It would be nice to have a real conversation about the nexus between American politics and business interests. At one point, deep in the past, Americans had at least one side of the aisle ready to ask uncomfortable questions of our corporate titans. Now, though, they’re too busy posing for pictures in front of a silly statue paid for by a hedge fund. ¨
Jay Cost is a senior writer at The Weekly Standard.
