Tweedism has also rendered us unequal.
“Unequal.”
That word sits uncomfortably within American politics today. In one sense, it is perfectly uncontroversial: No one defends race discrimination, or sex discrimination, or at least no one defends them openly anymore. And almost no one defends sexual orientation discrimination— and amazingly so, given how quickly attitudes on that equality have changed. In this sense, we are all egalitarians, Republicans and Democrats alike. In this sense, at least, we all believe in “equality.”
But when the sense of “equality” shifts from race or sex to class, the hums of “Kumbaya” fall silent. We all may believe in racial equality, but wealth equality? For a large majority of Americans, especially on the Right, no way. The same is true for speech equality.