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One thing that the Republicans did starting in the fifties, culminating with President Reagan, was to frame government as "other." This notion of "us and them" fed the resentment and paranoia that were bedrock virtues of the white south. And so, for 50 or 60 years, a segment of the nation has interpreted "We, the people" as individuals set against the government.

Of course this is ironic, since the founders wrote "we, the people" and the few thousand words that follow to create a government.

And also ironic is that the national Republican Party is now the captive of its knuckle-dragging wing, while the Democratic Party is a relatively civilized collection of not nealry so conflicting interests.

On Monday, President Obama continued his process, more clearly now, of seizing "we, the people" and linking it to government--government is not "them," it is us.

The forces of regression and social stratification (the Republican Party, the flying monkeys of Fox News, the trolls on AM radio)