The hypocrisy of Democrats talking about getting money out of politics but bragging about how much money they were collecting.

Their talk about money in politics is meaningless because their actions say something else. It was not just the big fundraiser the other night. It was also Obama’s unwillingness to abide by fundraising limits once he realized he could outraise McCain. It was the silence by Democrats when Bloomberg promised to pour a ton of money into defeating Trump in 2020. I know a lot of my progressive friends do not want to hear this but the Democrats can talk all they want about getting money out of politics, but their actions show their real priorities.

But there is a larger issue here. This is a conclusion I have slowly come to over the past few years. Not too long ago the Republicans were known as the party of the elite and the Democrats as the part of the common person. But now it has switched. The Democrats are now the party of the elite and the Republicans are the party of the common person. For a while, the Democrats were clearly the party of the culture elite but now they are the party of the educational and SES elite as well. The reason why Democrats do not really want to get rid of money in politics today is because they have the fundraising advantage and they do not want to give that up.

Of course, there is other evidence of this switch. Polls are consistently showing that the lower educational and economic classes are moving into the Republican party. Even in marginalized racial groups, we see black and brown lower-class voters becoming more Republican. I do not think anytime soon that the Republicans will get a majority of the black or brown vote but it would not surprise me if they get a majority of the black or brown lower-class vote in the next ten years or so. On the other end of things, whites are voting for Democrats in higher percentages than before. Regardless of all the talk about the political power of white evangelicals, if Trump wins the presidency again it will be despite the movement of whites, especially highly educated whites, out of the Republican party.

None of this is to say that the Democrats are wrong. The Republicans were not always automatically wrong when they were the party of the elite. But the image of the Republicans as the party of the elite is incorrect. That is now the Democrat party.