Such is the price that the New Left paid to win the White House: embrace a "New Democrat" who's to the right of Richard Nixon. Seriously: Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency and proposed a minimum income for the poor. Clinton would admit to sex with Monica What's Her Name before offering similar proposals.

Today, the hollowed-out shell of liberalism is defined -- and therefore further wrecked -- by government lawyers, government bureaucrats, judges, and "multicultural" and "progressive" academics. Many of these "liberals" indulge in ceaseless preening and self-aggrandizement -- and do almost nothing for America's working class and poor. Richard Neely, who served as Chief Justice of the West Virginia Supreme Court, helpfully illustrates Liberalism's self-congratulation. His Honor writes:

Certainly a majority of the educated elite, as reflected by the attitudes of the faculties, trustees, and student bodies at major universities, considers affirmative action, although predatory, morally justifiable. It is just as certain, however, that a majority of Americans disapprove. There is no theoretical justification for continued support of affirmative action other than the elitist one that the courts know from their superior education that affirmative action is necessary in the short run to achieve the generally applauded moral end of equal opportunity in the long run (Neely, How Courts Govern America, page 6).

This is class-consciousness with a vengeance, albeit admirably direct. At least His Honor is an honest snob. And, like most of today's establishment liberals, His Honor doesn't pay the price of his Grand Visionsäthat's the job of the working class and poor.

Establishment liberalism's defense of race-based affirmative action is especially revealing. Race-based (in stark contrast to class- or needs-based) affirmative action has always lacked popular support. Its racial spoils system of quotas, disguised in clumsy double-talk about "goals" and "timetables", typically repels working class Americans of all races and ethnicities. Therefore, it lives or dies by enforcement at the highest levels: corporate, legal, educational, and governmental. From the perspective of the federal government and big business, race-based affirmative action is dirt-cheap and assuages white liberal guilt about racism. Additionally, it creates an alliance with well-off minority patrons who depend upon lower university admissions standards, aggressive corporate recruitment, set-aside contracts, and voting district gerrymandering.

Meanwhile, it does almost nothing for the minority working class and poor. The liberals make pretty speeches about poor minorities, then turn around and give money and favors to well-off minorities. And as for poor whites: despite their "white privilege", they're mired in poverty just like the minority poor, and affirmative action typically offers nothing.

Establishment affirmative action is transparently class-driven, so much so that Karl Marx must be spinning in his grave. Today's liberals keep pretending that giving breaks to middle-class and affluent minorities helps poor minorities. In short, race-based affirmative action is liberalism's version of Ronald Reagan's much reviled trickle-down economics: the well-to-do get the gravy, and a few crumbs are thrown to working class minorities as political window dressing (e.g., maintenance and/or janitorial contracts for municipalities).

In higher ed., such class-consciousness is obvious to all but the ideologues. Clyde Summers, law faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, explains that while he has minority students in his classrooms, there's no working-class consciousness: "I have almost no students whose parents are union members, and very few students who come from what you would call the blue-collar working class. What that means is that no one has any idea of what life is like on the other side of the tracks. That leads to a very sterile discussion when it comes to labor law" (Kahlenberg, The Remedy, p. 171). So much for the "diversity" in higher education about which establishment liberals and higher ed. "leftists" love to rhapsodize.

Beyond support for trickle-down affirmative action, today's liberals abandon their would-be constituents in other ways. In some cases, liberals simply ignore important issues, as is the case with a serious crack at health care reform. After President Bill's attempt at health care "reform" collapsed, liberals ran for cover and, in political self-defense, borrowed the standard conservative clichés about big government programs that move too far, too fast, etc., etc. What a crock: Clinton's "reform" was, in fact, tailor-made for the biggest corporate insurance companies, such as Aetna and The Travelers. Only in today's liberal circles could "reform" mean handing even more power and market share to the nation's largest insurance companies.

When they're not trying to get to the right of tricky Dick Nixon's ghost, today's liberals strike self-serving moral poses, as when some hapless working class lout dares mumble something about immigration reform. Liberals love nothing more than wagging a scolding finger in the face of the benighted, and immigration gives them yet another chance for moral exhibitionism.

But after all the scoldings and solemn affirmations of "diversity", the establishment liberals -- joined by business and mainstream conservatives -- simply ignore the math. Today's huge numbers of immigrants ratchet down the wages of the working class of all races -- which is why the Wall Street Journal loudly supports continuing record rates of immigration. Immigrants, both legal and illegal, compete with working class and poor Americans for paychecks, thereby grinding down the wages of Americans who most need a raise. This is irresistibly convenient! Wall Street can berate America's poor and working class about their need "to compete" in the brave new world of global capitalism, even as more people fight for fewer jobs. Meanwhile, the left can indulge in its favorite pastime -- unabashed self-praise--and moralize to America's riffraff poor and working class about its selfish "Xenophobia" and shameful "racism".

If immigration continues at its present rate, the population of the United States will grow from today's roughly 250,000,000 to about 400,000,000 by the mid 21st century. And if anyone fantasizes that our economy will boast low unemployment foreveräwell, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan is sneaking up on you with a bucket of ice water. Greenspan‚President Bill's economic right hand man--will not put down that water bucket until job creation runs out of gas.

Beyond the facts of the national economy, consider this factoid: if growth continues at its current pace, the world's population will be between 10 and 14 billion in 60 years. This is growth of nearly incomprehensible speed. Now, keep those 10 to 14 billion in mind and consider their effect on the wages of America's poor and working classäsmall wonder that, ensconced in its gated communities, corporate America will raise a glass of bubbly and praise the miracle of the "free market" that showers ever-cheaper labor on them.

The mathematical bottom line: It's the very high number of immigrants, not the race or ethnicity of the immigrants, that's the inescapable problem. If all the immigrants were blonde-haired and blue-eyed, the assault on working class wages would be just as relentless -- but of course, forefinger-wagging liberals pretend not to understand. Or perhaps they just don't care. (Wall Street, of course, does understand, and the understanding brings joy to its heart). At any rate, high immigration is no threat to establishment liberals. They are typically in the professional classes, and their jobs aren't threatened by continuing record numbers of poor immigrants. Indeed: the soaring numbers offer new mascots and pawns over which liberals can strike yet more poses and collect more paychecks.