In a republic, people decline to be led by leaders who are insufferably full of themselves.

Is he talking about Jim Webb or the president?

And of course the typical 'drifting toward' = 'is' interpretation, and since we don't live in Elizabethan England, there's absolutely no class inequality whatsoever.

But the overarching point to be taken from this editorial is that the Republicans have nothing substantive to say, therefore you get this whiny diaper-shitting.