{"id":9915,"date":"2017-03-08T10:13:14","date_gmt":"2017-03-08T18:13:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=9915"},"modified":"2021-07-26T10:27:13","modified_gmt":"2021-07-26T17:27:13","slug":"is-the-american-elite-really-elite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/is-the-american-elite-really-elite\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the American Elite Really Elite?"},"content":{"rendered":"
by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review<\/em><\/div>\n
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The public no longer believes that privilege and influence should be predicated on titles, brands, and buzz.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Establishment furor over the six-week-old Trump administration is growing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Outraged New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman recently compared Trump\u2019s victory to disasters in American history that killed and wounded thousands such as the Pearl Harbor surprise bombing and the 9\/11 terrorist attacks.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The New Republic \u2014 based on no evidence \u2014 theorized that Trump could well be mentally unstable due to the effects of neurosyphilis.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Talk of removing the new president through impeachment, or opposing everything he does (the progressive \u201cResistance\u201d), is commonplace. Some op-ed writers and pundits abroad have openly hoped for his violent death.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Trump is in a virtual war with the mainstream global media, the entrenched so-called deep state, the Democratic-party establishment, progressive activists, and many in the Republican party as well.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The sometimes undisciplined and loud Trump is certainly not a member of the familiar ruling cadre, which dismisses him as a crude and know-nothing upstart who should never have been elected president. (Had Hillary Clinton won in 2016 and served a full term, a member of either the Bush or Clinton families would have been president for 24 years of a 32-year span.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But who, exactly, makes up these disgruntled elite classes?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In California, state planners and legislators focused on things such as outlawing plastic grocery bags while California\u2019s roads and dams over three decades sank into decrepitude. The result is crumbling infrastructure that now threatens the very safety of the public. Powerful Californians with impressive degrees also came up with the loony and neo-Confederate idea of nullifying federal immigration law through sanctuary cities.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sophisticated Washington, D.C., economists produced budgets for the last eight years that saw U.S. debt explode from $10 trillion to nearly $19 trillion, as economic growth sank to its lowest level since the Hoover administration.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For a year, most expert pundits and pollsters smugly assured the public of a certain Hillary Clinton victory \u2014 until the hour before she was overwhelmed in the Electoral College.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Rhodes Scholar and former U.N. ambassador Susan Rice lied repeatedly on national television about the Benghazi debacle. 21st-century repute is accrued from the false gods of the right zip code, high income, proper social circles.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

From the fabulist former NBC anchorman Brian Williams to the disreputable reporters who turned up in WikiLeaks, there are lots of well-educated, influential, and self-assured elites who apparently cannot tell the truth or in dishonest fashion mix journalism and politics.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Elitism sometimes seems predicated on being branded with the proper degrees. But when universities embrace a therapeutic curriculum and politically correct indoctrination, how can a costly university degree guarantee knowledge or inductive thinking?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Is elitism defined by an array of brilliant and proven theories?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Not really. University-sired identity politics has not led to racial and ethnic harmony. Is there free speech or diversity of thought on campuses? Did progressive government save the inner cities?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Are elites at least better-spoken and more knowledgeable than the rest of us?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Long before Trump\u2019s monotonous repetition of \u201ctremendous\u201d and \u201cgreat,\u201d Barack Obama thought \u201ccorpsmen\u201d was pronounced \u201ccorpse-men,\u201d and that Austrians spoke \u201cAustrian\u201d rather than German.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Not long ago, Representative Hank Johnson (D., Ga.) warned that if Guam became too populated it might just tip over and sink.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Western world is having a breakdown. The symptoms are the recent rise of socialist Bernie Sanders, Trump\u2019s election, the Brexit vote, and the spread of anti\u2013European Union parties across Europe.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But these are desperate folk remedies, not the cause of the disease itself.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The malady instead stems from our false notion of elitism.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The public no longer believes that privilege and influence should be predicated on titles, brands, and buzz, rather than on demonstrable knowledge and proven character. The idea that brilliance can be manifested in trade skills or retail sales, or courage expressed by dealing with the hardship of factory work, or character found on an Indiana farm, is foreign to the Washington Beltway, Hollywood, and Silicon Valley.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Instead, 21st-century repute is accrued from the false gods of the right zip code, high income, proper social circles, and media exposure, rather than from a demonstrable record of moral or intellectual excellence.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In 1828, the wild and unruly Andrew Jackson was elected president because the rapidly expanding country had tired of the pretenses of an exhausted elite of tidewater and New England mediocrities.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The hollow, tiny coastal establishment of the 1820s perpetuated the ancestry and background of the great but all-but-disappeared Founding Fathers such as George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe. Yet otherwise, the Founders\u2019 lesser successors had not earned the status they had assumed from their betters. The outsider Jackson won by exposing their pretenses.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What got the brash Trump elected was a similar popular outrage that the self-described best and brightest of our time are has-beens, having enjoyed influence without real merit or visible achievement.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If Donald Trump did not exist, something like him would have had to be invented.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/article\/445371\/american-elites-donald-trump-conflict-over-shaking-establishment<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review The public no longer believes that privilege and influence should be predicated on titles, brands, and buzz.   Establishment furor over the six-week-old Trump administration is growing.   Outraged New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman recently compared Trump\u2019s victory to disasters in American history that killed and wounded thousands […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1094,1092,92,145,31,187,46,185,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-2zV","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11847,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/colluders-obstructionists-leakers-and-other-projectionists\/","url_meta":{"origin":9915,"position":0},"title":"Colluders, Obstructionists, Leakers, and Other Projectionists","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 29, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness Before the defeat of Hillary Clinton, the idea that the Russians or anyone else could warp or tamper with our elections in any serious manner was laughed off by President Obama. \u201cThere is no serious person out there who would suggest that you could\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Hillary Clinton"","block_context":{"text":"Hillary Clinton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/hillary-clinton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11499,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/cnns-existential-war-with-trump\/","url_meta":{"origin":9915,"position":1},"title":"CNN\u2019s Existential War With Trump","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 5, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness It may be unwise or monotonous for President Trump to harp on CNN as a purveyor of \u201cfake news.\u201d And the constant refrain \u201cenemy of the people\u201d should not be used of a media outlet, even one as prejudicial as CNN. Yet Trump\u2019s obsessions\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "CNN"","block_context":{"text":"CNN","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/cnn\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12632,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/how-american-journalism-died\/","url_meta":{"origin":9915,"position":2},"title":"How American Journalism Died","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 21, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review In\u00a02017, the liberal Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard University found that 93 percent of CNN\u2019s coverage of the Trump administration was negative. The center found similarly negative Trump coverage at other major news outlets. The election year 2020 has\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9897,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-labyrinth-of-illegal-immigration\/","url_meta":{"origin":9915,"position":3},"title":"The Labyrinth of Illegal Immigration","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 23, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review Navigating self-interest, ideals, and public opinion in the debate about illegal immigration. Activists portray illegal immigration solely as a human story of the desperately poor from south of the border fleeing misery to start new, productive lives in the U.S. \u2014 despite exploitation and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Trump"","block_context":{"text":"Trump","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/trump\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11194,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/how-democracies-end-a-bureaucratic-whimper\/","url_meta":{"origin":9915,"position":4},"title":"How Democracies End: A Bureaucratic Whimper","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 21, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness One strange trait of the die hard NeverTrump Republicans and progressives is their charge that Donald Trump poses an existential threat to democracy. Trump, as is his wont, says a lot of outrageous and weird things. But it is hard in his 16 months\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Democrats"","block_context":{"text":"Democrats","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/democrats\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11458,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/world-economic-forum-confirms-the-us-is-great-again-under-trump\/","url_meta":{"origin":9915,"position":5},"title":"World Economic Forum confirms the US is great again under Trump","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 19, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Please read this piece by my colleague Paul Roderick Gregory in The Hill The World Economic Forum\u2019s (WEF) 2018\u00a0World Competitiveness Report ranks the United States No. 1 in global competitiveness, up from\u00a0No. 3 in the past few years and its first top ranking in a decade. A high ranking matters.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Donald Trump"","block_context":{"text":"Donald Trump","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/donald-trump\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9915"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9915"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9916,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9915\/revisions\/9916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}