It is well known that J. R. R. Tolkien held to a bucolic fantasy of pre-industrial England as a Utopia, as portrayed in the Shire in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Mordor, its polar opposite, represents everything wrong with dehumanized, imperial, warmongering industrial society. The Dark Satanic Mills of William Blake, while we are at it.
The Shire is what you get if you pluck a farming region in the medieval pre-enclosure, pre-industrial English Midlands out of space and time, omitting its feudal overlords and all of the surrounding peoples who so frequently invaded England since before the Romans (like the Germanic Angles, Saxons, and Jutes; and the Danes, the Norwegians, the Irish, and eventually the Norman French coming into various parts of Britain). And shrinking the people, of course.
Without the aristocratic landowners, you also have to omit the system of land tenancy and serfdom that made most of the population unfree peasants. Tolkien kept almost all of the supposed virtues of the sturdily independent yeoman freeholder farmer, and allowed no worse note of discord in the Shire than Lobelia Baggins coveting Bilbo's extensive but cozy burrow, and stealing his spoons.
Then Tolkien simply ignored all of the marauding forces in Middle Earth that would have pounced on such a defenseless territory, including but not limited to humans, wood elves, orcs, and more, even before we get to Sauron's particular minions. The Hobbits meet them all, but always elsewhere, except for one near-encounter with one Nazgul.
Until Saruman and Grima Wormtongue arrive, and turn the Shire into an industrial Hell.
But how does this relate to us? I'm glad you asked that.
In the latest iteration of the nationalized Republican Southern Strategy, which began with Barry Goldwater, the Right invites all of the haters, including but not limited to the racists, the Religious Right, the Reagan Democrats, Fox News, and the Tea Parties to channel their inner Gollum against the thief, BilbObamaggins, who has made off with the source of their power, and is even now sitting in his place of power pointing and laughing at them.
We hates it, Preciousss. We hates it forever!
The Precious was designed to be the source of total power, including power over all other sources of power, if one is so corrupt as to desire that. As a result it is utterly corrupting to anyone who would wield it. Even carrying it has severe affects on the mind. It has been, for these factions of Republicans, the power of invisible privilege and the Dog Whistle, easily heard by them but implausibly deniable to Liberals and the media. But no more. Not only has Obama stolen their power, but Hillary also slips right past them, and the media too, while plainly exposing the Wraiths, especially Ronald Reagan, who are supposed to terrorize and intimidate us.
For some factions the Precious is defined by clinging to their inherited hatreds.
In the 1%, however, it is the political power of money, or the Mordorish coal, oil, and gas that generates so much of that money.
Three fuels for business kings under the sky,
Three holding workers in mines and fracking stone
Many hates for preachers in their halls on high,
Dark money for the Dark Lords on their Dark Thrones.
Money to rule us all, money to find us,
Money to bring us all and in the darkness bind us,
In the land of GOPpers where the shadows lie.
That is, until we can resolve to keep the fuels in the ground, and throw the political power of money into the volcano of Constitutional amendment. I'm not holding my breath, but our forces are gathering.
Hence, however, the caricature of 19th century industrial oppression and pollution in the Shire, where peaceful locals have no idea of how to resist Saruman's voice until our well-armed and battle-tested Hobbit heroes, returning from the wars, take them in hand.
His voice was low and melodious, its very sound an enchantment…it was a delight to hear the voice speaking, all that it said seemed wise and reasonable, and desire woke in them by swift agreement to seem wise themselves…for those whom it conquered the spell endured while they were far away and ever they heard that soft voice whispering and urging them.
The Two Towers Book III Chapter X
Can you imagine Saruman on Fox News or Right wing talk radio? Actually, when you look at the effects they have on their followers, like Limbaugh's proud Dittoheads, you don't have to imagine it, nor do you have to imagine Red state Hell, where so many of the country folk are not the pleasant Hobbits of the Shire, but the power-mad Teahadi. They bend all of their energies to engineering their own oppression in order to harm their supposed enemies. We in our coalition, on the other hand, want nothing more than to help them, as the Hobbits and the representatives of other races in the Fellowship set out to save all of Middle Earth.