E.J. Dionne in the Washington

E.J. Dionne in the Washington Post takes exception to claims that he and his fellow Democrats are engaging in class warfare when they attack President Bush’s economic policies. But he fails to come up with a better description for a camp that supports increased expropriation of the assets of well-to-do Americans and accuses these people of being greedy when they complain about it. Actually, Dionne doesn’t really deny that he engages in class warfare. Instead, he grouses that the Republicans do it too. He cites President Bush’s criticism of some trial lawyers, as well as conservative attacks on the “Hollywood elite” or the “cultural elite.” But the examples Dionne cites involve objections to the actions through which one group of people becomes wealthy, or they refer to certain sets of cultural attitudes. This is not class warfare in any strong sense because it does not single out individuals for attack based solely on their economic status, much less urge that anyone be made less wealthy through state action.