Michael Goodwin

Michael Goodwin

US News

‘The Revolt Against the Masses’ reveals liberalism’s elitist roots

Ever wonder why liberals insist they are fighting for the middle class but look down on working people? Ever wonder why progressives talk endlessly about diversity yet can’t tolerate the slightest dissent from their orthodoxy?

Ever wonder why Barack Obama seems more suited for a European coffee shop than the Oval Office?

Wonder no more. Fred Siegel’s new book explains all you need to know about liberalism, a political philosophy that, despite good intentions, careened off track after World War I and hasn’t found its way back yet.

“The Revolt Against the Masses” is a brilliantly argued, well-timed case against reactionary snobs who were and remain disgusted with American society. Under the subtitle “How Liberalism has Undermined the Middle Class,” Siegel documents with scholarly detail the arrogance of elites who launched a movement that romanticizes the poor while trying, with distressing success, to dismantle the democratic, capitalist traditions that helped establish the middle class.

“The aim of liberalism’s founding writers and thinkers — such as Herbert Croly, Randolph Bourne, H.G. Wells, Sinclair Lewis and H.L. Mencken — was to create an American aristocracy of sorts, to provide the same sense of hierarchy and ­order long associated with European statism,” he writes.

I have enjoyed many lively conversations with Siegel, and his voice jumps off the page. He approvingly quotes an early critic’s observation that a “psychological mechanism” allows progressive reformers to turn their own failings “into moral judgments against society.”

Siegel traces the movement from the era of Woodrow Wilson to our own, stopping along the way for details the way a travel writer samples local food. Wells, for example, is best remembered for science-fiction books like “The Time Machine,” but Siegel blames him for laying out “two central tropes of liberalism: a sense of superiority and a claim on the future.”

Croly, a founder of the New Republic magazine, held the average American in contempt and wanted a government led by enlightened ­experts. Mission accomplished.

Siegel, of St. Francis College and the Manhattan Institute, has a keen eye for hypocrisy. He twins liberalism’s hunger for “moral deregulation” with its appetite for overregulating everything else. He captures the religious fervor by labeling its leaders a “clerisy.”

The ultimate payoff is his depiction of Obama as the incarnation of the philosophy’s disdain for conventional life, including the president’s penchant for “authoritarian liberalism.” In that America, rights are given and taken by government experts.

In a remarkable book that has only one shortcoming — it’s too short — Siegel connects the dots between the founding motivations of liberalism and the failed social experiments of today.

From the dumbing down of education to extreme environmentalism, from anti-family poverty programs to free-speech curbs on campuses, the excesses of our times are laid out like the pieces of a puzzle. It is a clear-eyed vision of how we got to this troubled place.

Sadly, the damage continues. The president’s scandalous attempts to circumvent Congress and the Constitution by, among other things, re-writing ObamaCare to suit his political needs, demonstrate that the overreach will not stop voluntarily.

That is the challenge Siegel presents. Thanks to his brilliant work, none of us can claim ignorance.

The ‘Blas’ pass: That’s the ticket!

Mayor de Blasio defended his call to the police about a supporter who was arrested as “absolutely appropriate” and says “that’s the end of the story.”

Maybe, maybe not. Some stories have legs from the start, and others grow them later. We can’t know yet whether this story is finished or just the first example of corrupt cronyism.

Much depends on whether the mayor intervenes again in police procedures. With 35,000 cops working around the clock, the odds are high that other mayoral pals will get busted. And after this case, anybody facing charges who ever met de Blasio would be crazy not to beg for special help.

Thus, I offer a modest proposal. It would be far simpler if de Blasio drew up a list of people who, by virtue of their support for him, earned a get-out-of-jail free card.

This “Friends of Mayor Bill” list should be posted in every station house and squad car for handy reference. Detectives should carry a copy at all times and commanders would be required to memorize it.

Each name should include an identifying fact to prevent fraud, such as campaign contributions made or number of voters registered. Those arrested who demand mayoral help could be given a quiz on progressive values, to make sure no infidels slip through.

The idea involves some effort, but consider the alternative. The mayor said it was near midnight when he got the first call on Bishop Orlando Findlayter’s arrest and it was after that when the precinct commander drove from his Queens home to Brooklyn to let the pastor walk.

If that becomes a habit, nobody in City Hall will get any sleep and cops will be wasting time enforcing the law on those above it. Better to make a list and stop pretending justice is blind.

Bam hands putin the keys

Vladimir Putin isn’t letting the Olympics interfere with Russia’s expansionist aims. The Syria peace talks collapsed when Putin refused to discuss pushing Bashar al-Assad from power. Even more brazen, Egypt’s top military commander visited Putin last week and came away with his endorsement for the presidential election. They also discussed expanding economic and military ties.

When future historians ask who lost Egypt and let Russia back into the Middle East, the answer will be easy: Barack Obama.

Actually, we don’t have to wait for historians. We can see Russia’s expansion and America’s retreat with our own eyes.

Trying time$ for Boyland

For sheer sleaze, it’s hard to top the Brooklyn corruption trial of Assemblyman William Boyland Jr. Federal prosecutors are trying to show he solicited more than $250,000 in bribes tied to real-estate deals. Unfortunately for the Democrat, the “businessmen” seeking his help were undercover FBI agents.

His former girlfriend and assistant testified about her role, and it was a doozy. “Under my official capacity, I accepted bribes and I helped my former boss receive bribes,” Ry-Ann Hermon said.

She told of her own checkered past, saying “I committed mortgage fraud” and owed over $100,000 in back taxes. She said Boyland used a nonprofit funded by taxpayers for campaign events. Boyland’s father, a former assemblyman, allegedly was a bag man for one bribe.

Boyland Jr. beat the rap on an earlier case, but was caught on tape saying he needed $250,000 to pay legal fees. Unless he’s got a good defense, this case is shaping up as an even more expensive proposition. And a classic example of why Gov. Cuomo must keep exposing Albany’s dirty dealers.

Chancell or storming on

The storm that wreaked havoc on New York last week deserves a name. Absent a better idea, I say we name it “Carmen,” as in Carmen “it’s a beautiful day” Fariña. That way, the chancellor’s cluelessness and the public’s misery will remain inseparable.