Once upon a time, only American social climbers and posers like John Kerry could aspire to have soulmates in Europe. Now, even those in trailer parks can claim spiritual cousins across the ocean:
In the West, gradual de-industrialization has created a new underclass of the unproductive and intellectually depraved. The spiritual cousin of the American phenomenon of "white trash," these strangers in their own land have become a serious threat to democracy.
The modern-day member of the underclass is not hungry. He has a roof over his head, he is not disproportionately vulnerable to illness and he even has a bit of cash in his pocketbook. In every Western European country, he is both a citizen and a beneficiary of the welfare state, even if the state's services are no longer as generous as they once were.
