formula, describing the national community,rnthe civic religion, and the politicalrncreed,” each of which also reflectedrnthe interests of the rulers of the regimes.rn”Federal republicanism,” essentially aristocraticrnand decentralist and drawn fromrnBritish Old Whig political doctrine, wasrnthe defining political creed of the FirstrnRepublic; “federal democracy,” based onrna larger and more centralized nationalrnstate and more directly democratic, wasrnthe political ideal of the Second Republic;rnand a multiculturalist democracyrnrevolving around the “group rights”rnenshrined in affirmative action, multiculturalistrncurricula, and racially gerrymanderedrnelectoral districts characterizesrnthe Third Republic.rnLind’s morphology of American historyrn(a caricature of Clyde Wilson’srnricher analysis) is just a bit too cute, andrnit can be criticized for its casual lumpingrn(or separation) of diverse figures, ideas,rnand forces.rnAlthough he insists throughout onrncommon language and common culturernrather than race as the basis of nationality,rnit is really racial and ethnic consciousnessrnthat distinguish Lind’s three “republics.”rnThe first two republics in hisrnhistorical scheme were both explicitlyrnracialist in their public ideologies. ThernFirst Republic, as Lind describes it, wasrnvirtually proto-Nazi, with Thomas Jeffersonrnwrapping himself in the myth of thernAnglo-Saxon race and the discoveryrnof the unity of the Indo-European (orrn”Aryan”) languages in the late 18th centuryrnproviding a rationale for the doctrinernof Anglo-Germanic supremacy.rnThe Second Republic was no less racialist,rnthough it modified the doctrine ofrnAnglo-Saxon supremacy to one of merelyrnwhite supremacy, restricting the immigrationrnof nonwhites but allowing thernentry of Europeans and their assimilationrninto the national economy andrnmythology. The Third Republic also revolvesrnaround race, perhaps even morernexplicitly than the first two, except thatrnwhite supremacy is rejected and scorned,rnwhile the “empowerment” of nonwhitesrnis exalted.rnLind seems unaware of the racialistrnimplications of his analysis. He is explicitrnabout his belief that race is an objectivelyrnmeaningless concept that shouldrndisappear through intermarriage. Yet despiternhis denials, race keeps slippingrnin through the basement window as arnmajor historical force. When he comesrnto describing the common language andrncommon culture that define the Americanrnnation, they too turn out to be raciallyrnbased. The common language isrnplainly derived from Indo-European languages,rnwhile the common culture isrnderived from the cultures of Europeanrnpopulations. Leaving aside the questionrnof the extent to which race actuallyrndetermines culture, what Lind’s ownrnaccount implies is that race is the carrierrnof culture, if only because we tend tornlearn our culture from the same people,rnour parents and their breeding pools.rnDespite its flaws, Lind’s concept ofrnculture is considerably deeper than thatrnof neoconservative universalists like BenrnWattenberg, who view American culturernas limited to the techno-pop of Madonnarnand McDonald’s, getting rich quick,rnand invocations of civics textbook celebrationsrnof democracy and equalityrnfor everybody. By their cultural standards,rnassimilation takes place as soon asrnan immigrant gets a job and starts watchingrntelevision. Assimilation to Lind’srnstandards would be more difficult, butrnhe still underestimates the persistentrnpower of alien habits of thought andrnconduct, and he never seems to grasprnthat culture consists not merely inrnunique customs but in distinctive normsrnthat define the ways in which a people isrnsupposed to think, feel, and act.rnLind’s concept of class is as flawed asrnhis view of culture, and it is his accountrnof the “overclass” that, more than anyrnother aspect of his book, has grabbed thernpopular imagination. He did not coinrnthe term (Kevin Phillips, for one, usesrnit in one of his books earlier in thisrndecade), but it is a useful word to describerna social stratum that lacks any otherrnlabel and is now beginning to acquirernits own consciousness and identity.rnLind defines a social class as a “grouprnof families, united by intermarriage andrna common subculture, whose membersrntend to predominate in certain professionsrnand political offices, generationrnafter generation.” But this definitionrnconflates a social class (the kinship andrnsubcultural elements) with a ruling classrn(the domination element); not all socialrnclasses “predominate in certain professionsrnand political offices,” only elites orrnruling classes (which are not the samernthing either). Moreover, defining socialrnclass in terms of kinship and subculturesrnis not adequate. The members of anyrnclass tend to marry among each other,rnand the custom of intermarriage is notrndistinctive of classes (members of thernsame nations, races, and religions alsorntend to intermarry). If the concept ofrnclass is to be useful for social and politicalrnanalysis, it has to identify a set of commonrninterests, economic, political, orrnsocial, that unite one group in distinctionrnfrom others with different and oftenrnconflicting interests.rnBut Lind’s discussion of the overclassrnhas little to do with his own definitionrnof class. Despite a clever dissection ofrnthe sexual and marital habits of the overclass,rnwhich include postponed marriagernand postadolescent cohabitation as arnform of trial marriage, the overclass isrnnot at all defined by intermarriage. Thernoverclass, he writes, is “a small grouprnconsisting of affluent white executives,rnprofessionals, and rentiers, most of themrnwith advanced degrees, who with theirrndependents amount to no more than arnfifth or so of the American population.”rnFair enough, but this definition excludesrnthe kinship and subcultural elements ofrnhis definition of social class.rnLind’s overclass is essentially a variationrnof his fellow Texan C. Wright Mills’rnPower Elite, though it also owes a goodrndeal to James Burnham and the theoryrnof the managerial revolution, from whichrnMills also borrowed. The overclass, Lindrnwrites, “originated in the middle of thern20th century in the merger of the Northeasternrnelite [the industrial capitalists ofrnthe Second Republic] with other Anglo-rnAmerican sectional elites and the assimilated,rnupwardly mobile descendants ofrn19th- and 20th-century European immigrants.”rnIts power is based on fraud andrnmanipulation: “The hypocrisy andrncunning of its members should not bernmistaken for weakness. Machiavelli observedrnthat one must rule either by sforzarnor frodo, by force or fraud. The whiternoverclass in the United States since thern60’s has specialized in ruling by fraud.”rnThe great fraud it perpetrates, he argues,rnis in claiming that it is liberal, supposedlyrncommitted to promoting socialrnchange and encouraging equality, whilernin reality its concessions to nonwhitesrnare minimal. Its sponsorship of “grouprnrights,” multiculturalism, and “identityrnpolitics” are in fact “merely America’srnversion of the oldest oligarchic trick inrnthe book: divide and rule.”rnThe overclass, Lind argues, by pretendingrnto support nonwhite racialrnaspirations, actually promotes racial polarizationrnand keeps the races apart tornprevent the emergence of a transracialrn28/CHRONICLESrnrnrn