That American life has coarsened over the past several decades is not much argued, but the nature of the beast is still in question. Gertrude Himmelfarb sees it as a struggle between competing elites, in which the left originated a counterculture that the right failed to hold back. Daniel Patrick...

Many elites are trying to reinvoke old norms and reverse the process, but most are succumbing to "proletarianization."

Electoral problems for the Democrats extend beyond getting voters to put economic issues ahead of other issues; the problem is whether the party can win even on economic issues.