"The Residence" incidentally exposes The Royal Family's paternalistic elitism

The recent blockbuster book, "The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House" seems written for tabloid and sensational effect.  This alleged expose, like Clinton-hating ex-FBI agent Gary Aldrich's long ago "tell all" book about the Clinton White House, gives us what we want to read about Bill and Hillary.  They screamed and cursed at each other.  Hillary threw things at Bill after Monicagate broke, etc.

And it also says that the domestic staff's most "beloved" first family was King George I Herbert Walker and Queen Babs.

It's probably an honest book on both of these matters, because it exposes an uncomfortable truism about class structure, deference, noblesse oblige, and the perceptual exercise of power.

The Clintons (at least Bill) grew up without the benefits of being waiting on by a servile class.  In fact, Bill was a part of the servile class, waiting on the gangsters and other vulgar nouveau riche who frequented the decaying watering hole of Hot Springs during his youth.  Bill is proof that, no matter the level of education or acquired wealth, it is hard to take the "trash" out of "white trash."

The Clintons, even if unconsciously, probably viewed the "help" at the White House as their social equals, an extension of their own family, and therefore entitled to hear their cursing and yelling at each other, just as Bill had to hear it between his mother and his drunkard step-father in his own dysfunctional home growing up.

The Bushes are a different story. They understand the role of elites, the separation of classes, and believe themselves to be the platonic fulfillment of a neoconservative ruling class. They understand the role of paternalism just as much as the slave owning class in the antebellum South understood it, and they understand how to gain the affection of those they consider their "inferiors," yet for whom they believe they have an obligation to be kind to and protect, at least in a superficial manner, while denying them equality, even of opportunity.

While old King George I was doting on his house servants, he was supporting tax and trade policies that economically enslaved the vast majority of his "subjects" and gutted the once mighty postwar American middle class.

Sadly Bill and Hillary did little to reverse these policies at their core, though they did, and Hillary likely still does, understand the need to promote on some level a growth economy that creates a level of jobs necessary to sustain it.  Despite the Clinton's nasty courting of Wall Street hucksters and economic charlatans like Robert Rubin and Larry Summers, whose policies greatly contributed to the eventual financial crash in 2008, and their own personal pay to play enrichment schemes, one should, when evaluating the two evils on the ballot next year, carefully compare the number of net jobs created during the eight years of Billary to those created during both "kindly" King Georges' reigns.

Unless you are a house domestic with a recession-proof government gig, you might consider the yelling and cursing better than the friendly pat on the head, or calculated term of endearment.