Dwarf Kingdom Explainer

The Dwarf Kingdom represents the American North West. It used to also include the Mid-West, and the South West, and significant parts of the South. This territory has now been taken over by Elves (Mid-West) and Trolls (South West and South).

A central theme of this book is mainstream middle-class conservatives feeling displaced: being pushed out by liberals on one side, and extreme conservative factions on the other. The tension in the Dwarf Kingdom reflects the tension within the American Conservative movement. Mainstream conservatives blame liberals for the nations problems, but they are well aware that other factions of conservatism are an equally big problem, but one that cannot be easily addressed out loud.

 †  There are others, but the analogy is already getting rather confusing. Let's not confuse things further.

So the basic premise here is that your average Joe Conservative (not Joe the Plumber - he's a Troll), the game has changed dramatically, and not for the better. Where once they were the politically dominant group, strongly represented in the body politic, now their influence is weakening as party elites increasingly pander to extreme minority groups ("The Base") in order to win elections. The story of the shrinking Dwarf Kingdom is the story of how the Republican Party lurched to the right, first through the Christian Right, then the Tea Party. The Libertarians are incuded here because they represent their own brand of funny (see Knights of Li Bertar)

The idea of the Elf Kingdom encroaching on Dwarf Kingdom territory reflects the voting shift in the Mid-West, which in the Nixon-Carter-Reagan years was firmly Red, but in the Bush-Obama years has been largely Blue. No one woud argue that the Mid-West is a liberal political region, but the electoral map shows that it has lost its status as a conservative heartland.

A key point here, when lampooning conservative politics (which is very, very open to lampooning), is to address the reality that the absurdity of the modern GOP does not necessarily reflect the state of mind of a significantly large group of conservatives.

When visiting the Dwarf Kingdom, or meeting Dwarfs, this tension from within.

Economics
The decline of the Dwarf Kingdom also reflects the economic troubles of much of the Mid-West, brought on by Globalisation and decline of traditional manufacturing centres like Detroit and Michigan. While Dwarfs tend to be middle managers rather than on the factory floor, they still feel the hurt when whole industries move offshore. The tension here is coupled with the ideological divide between Dwarfs (right-leaning conservatives) and Orcs (left-leaning unionists). Both sides agree that factories closing is bad, but disagree fundamentally on the reasons why. Conservatives (Dwarfs) blame unionists (Orcs) for driving up costs. Unionists blame greedy factory owners (Giants) for putting profits ahead of people. An interesting side note to this debate is the debate about whether there is in fact a decline in manufacturing at all, or if it has just changed in nature from low skilled to high skilled manufacturing, and perhaps more significantly, from low skilled to robotic manufacturing. Wherever you look, The Dwarfs, and the Dwarf Kingdom is under seige, and they are not happy about it.

Read More
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/10/libertarians-are-not-the-tea-party/280976/

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/fixgov/posts/2013/12/27-libertarian-power-gop-tilchin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factions_in_the_Republican_Party_(United_States)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/27/us/politics/republicans-worry-about-keeping-factions-reined-in.html?_r=0

http://publicreligion.org/2013/10/the-relationship-between-libertarians-the-tea-party-and-the-christian-right/