DESPITE the blue-collar affectations of some of its most visible leaders or the populist rhetoric of its most vocal cheerleaders, it has never been more obvious that the Republican Party is the party of the boss and, in particular, the party of the small-business tyrant.

Who or what is the small-business tyrant? It’s the business owner whose livelihood rests on a steady supply of low-wage labour, who opposes unions, who resents even the most cursory worker protections and employee-safety regulations, and who views those workers as little more than extensions of himself, to use as he sees fit.

The small-business tyrant is, to borrow an argument from writer and podcaster Patrick Wyman, an especially reactionary member of America’s land-owning gentry: local economic elites whose wealth comes primarily from their ownership of physical assets.