Its September now. The 2024 Presidential contest is into the abbreviated arc of fall. After the historic and unprecedented stutter-step and pratfall of President Joe Biden and his replacement by VP Kamala Harris in an intra-party coup, the race is on. But the race between who?

Yeah, Donald Trump v Harris, GOP vs Democrats. But who are these two parties, these two directions?  In all the shocks and hurricane-force events, one central development has been overlooked: the parties themselves have been altered. “Republicans” and “Democrats” don’t mean what they used to. The Democratic Party is now the party of the Haves AND the Have-nots. The Republicans are the party of the Want-To-Haves.

Donald Trump’s rebuild of the Republican Party is complete. The 2024 Convention set the seal and broadcast it to the world: the 45-year-old Reagan 1980 institution is over. Gone is the coalition between free-market economists, social conservatives, ‘Country Club’ traditional Republicans, and anti-Communist internationalists. The new GOP is more populist, more libertarian on social issues, more in sympathy with working people, the middle class, and the trades. The Mitt Romney, John McCain, Bush wing is dead, gone, ‘Never Trumping’ and endorsing Harris.

When I say “working people” I especially mean folks who are eager to get ahead, sweat, strive, and build success for themselves and their families. This 100% bullseye-aims at immigrants and minorities. All those “Hispanic”(do we mean Mexican? Guatemalan, Chilean, Peruvian, Salvadorian?  They’re all as different as Norwegians and Greeks) people you see working, fixing, driving trucks around from job to job: they didn’t come to America to live on welfare checks or government jobs from the local Democrat party boss. They want the American Dream and the New GOP is speaking to them.

Not just new Americans. Take a look around at that foundation of the Democratic Party, African America. Younger Black folks and Black men are openly asking what 60 years of life on the Democrat plantation has gotten them. Why not walk out the gates and try something different? The sheer horror of Democrats at seeing Black folks talking about playing the field and opening up the bidding to two parties, brings the massive Operation Shore Up The Vote: Look: Kamala Harris is a black lady! Here’s Oprah & Michelle to tell you to stay with us! HEY, here’s Barack Obama! Trump is Hitler! It’s scary out there without us to protect you. Will it work? Probably not forever. Maybe not even this year.

The Democrats are the party of the Haves: big money, tech bosses, Hollywood, giant non-profits, oligopolistic business, radical culture warriors, Old Media, Universities, college grads. It’s also the Tribune of the Have Nots, who live on government checks. This also includes unionized government labor, who are Haves: neither poor nor powerless.

Together, the Haves/Have Nots produce a society like California: a great place to be rich, a place where you can get by if you’re poor, and hell for the fast-fleeing Middle class and anyone who wants to start a business. The Democratic Party doesn’t believe in individuals: it deals in collectives: everyone in a tribe and your rights and privileges depend on your tribe. The status of the tribes isn’t static: the white working class and the Jews are kicked out the back of the bus, single women and Muslim Americans are ushered to the front.

The Democrat Party is collectivist. Everyone in a union, a group, a tribe. Your group has leaders who keep you rounded up and voting correctly, and they in turn are rewarded by the Party. Step out of line, you get squashed one way or another. This system has no place for a smart, hard-working person from (fill in the blank) who wants to build a piece of the rock for him/herself and the family. Put your head down, get back to  your group!

You see these two fundamentally opposed systems: collectivist versus individualist, Have/Have Not vs Want-To-Have embodied by the two parties. That’s the real battle. Does America stay frozen in rule by the Party or does it blow open for whatever future is coming? I sure can’t say, but the Democrats are clearly nervous. They wouldn’t be trying so hard to clamp down and destroy the opposition by any means necessary if they weren’t.

Or is it TRUMP and MUSK?