"ELITE" IS NOT A SYNONYM FOR "DEMOCRATIC VOTER"

The opinion section of The New York Times is full of op-eds directly or indirectly blaming "elites" for Kamala Harris's defeat -- here's one by Thomas Frank, here's another by Maureen Dowd:

Democratic candidates have often been avatars of elitism — Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and second-term Barack Obama. The party embraced a worldview of hyper-political correctness, condescension and cancellation, and it supported diversity statements for job applicants and faculty lounge terminology like “Latinx,” and “BIPOC” (Black, Indigenous, People of Color).

We all know about "Latinx" because pundits -- most of them "elite" -- never tire of denouncing it. But "BIPOC"? Does any non-elite Trump voter even know that word exists?

The best of these columns is by Ben Rhodes, who now travels the world getting a firsthand look at the global rise of illiberalism, and who believes economic elitism deserves a great deal of the blame:

In the West, neoliberalism — that blend of free trade, deregulation and deference to financial markets — hollowed out communities while enriching a global oligarchy.... The financial crisis came through like a hurricane, wrecking the lives of people already struggling to get by while the rich profited on the back end.

His analysis goes beyond economic matters, but his critique of elitism focuses on those at the very top, the ones with real power:

We should merge our commitment to the moral, social and demographic necessity of an inclusive America with a populist critique of the system that Mr. Trump now runs; a focus more on reform than just redistribution. We must reform the corruption endemic to American capitalism, corporate malfeasance, profiteering in politics, unregulated technologies transforming our lives, an immigration system broken by Washington, the cabal of autocrats pushing the world to the brink of war and climate catastrophe.

The column by David Brooks is the worst because it implies that every Democratic voter is a privileged, powerful elitist dripping with contempt for the have-nots:

For the past 40 years or so, we lived in the information age. Those of us in the educated class decided, with some justification, that the postindustrial economy would be built by people like ourselves, so we tailored social policies to meet our needs.

Our education policy pushed people toward the course we followed — four-year colleges so that they would be qualified for the “jobs of the future.” Meanwhile, vocational training withered.

Did you vote to eliminate vocational training? I didn't, or if I did, I didn't know it. I'm an Ivy grad, so I'm "in the educated class," but I'm in favor of vocational training. Maybe it's because I grew up blue-collar, but even liberals I know who didn't grow up that way want non-college grads to have opportunities.

We embraced a free trade policy that moved industrial jobs to low-cost countries overseas so that we could focus our energies on knowledge economy enterprises run by people with advanced degrees....

We shifted toward green technologies favored by people who work in pixels, and we disfavored people in manufacturing and transportation whose livelihoods depend on fossil fuels.

I've always thought that the shift to renewable energy could find ways to transition manufacturing and transportation away from fossil fuels, but what do I know? I'm just a dumb elitist.

That great sucking sound you heard was the redistribution of respect. People who climbed the academic ladder were feted with accolades, while those who didn’t were rendered invisible. The situation was particularly hard on boys. By high school two-thirds of the students in the top 10 percent of the class are girls, while about two-thirds of the students in the bottom decile are boys. Schools are not set up for male success; that has lifelong personal, and now national, consequences.

I started screaming at my laptop when I read this. Why is "the situation ... particularly hard on boys"? They go to exactly the same schools their sisters attend. They have the same parents and home lives. If girls do better, whose fault is that?

Oh, I forgot: Boys are naturally restless and rambunctious. Girls aren't. Schools suppress boys' essential nature while rewarding girls. Why is this demand for special treatment of boys -- a sort of affirmative action -- a conservative idea?

You know who didn't believe this codswallop? The nuns at my mid-1960s working-class Catholic school. They believed that if girls could sit still in class, so could boys. I suppose David Brooks would now say they were being "woke." (I was there. They absolutely weren't "woke.")

A recent American Enterprise Institute study found that 24 percent of people who graduated from high school at most have no close friends. They are less likely than college grads to visit public spaces or join community groups and sports leagues. They don’t speak in the right social justice jargon or hold the sort of luxury beliefs that are markers of public virtue.

What? You can't join the company softball team unless you say "Latinx" or "BIPOC"?

I could continue quoting this and tell you how Brooks gets from here to Trump's victory, but I'd rather quote you some of the comments in response to it, especially the "Reader Picks." Here's the most recommended comment:

Just stop with the argument that a billionaire from NYC whose campaign was largely funded by the world’s richest man is not part of the “elite.” It’s even more risible to contend that Trump will actually help working class Americans.

The top commenters know who the real elites are:

Elon Musk isn't an elite?
RFK, Jr, isn't an elite?
Trump and Vance aren't, themselves, elite?
Jeff Bezos isn't elite?
The Koch brothers aren't elite?
The Supreme Court justices in Trump's pocket aren't elite?

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We didn’t move industry jobs in order to focus on anything- and certainly not to focus on “a knowledge economy.”
Manufacturing jobs were moved so that the captains of industry didn’t have to pay American workers a living wage, or have to abide by regulations intended to protect human beings....

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And what policies are Trump and his Grand Oligarch Party going to deliver to make working class lives better ?

The Republican Party is one of the most anti-worker, anti-union, wage suppressing parties in history....

And they're justifiably sick and tired of being called elitists themselves, because they aren't elitists:

Enough already with the talk of 'elites'. I do not have a college degree and my husband did not graduate from high school....we are small business owners and work with our hands. We believe in working towards the American Dream of self determination and the promise of equal opportunity for all. We understand that we are not there yet and anyone who believes that DT is the guy to move the dial in that direction is not paying attention....

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I am tired of being called an elite just because I have a college degree. I work every day in an office, more than 40 hours a week my husband just retired after working decades as a teacher. We do not see ourselves as elites but regular middle-class. If somebody is elite, I would think that it is Donald Trump, who never had to work in his life. Also elite is Vance who was able through education to move up on the ladder and now is a lawyer, his wife is one too, and they are wealthy. To vote for them is voting for rich, elitist people who have no connection to the regular working class. It makes no sense.

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If I hear “elites” one more time, I’m going to scream.

If my non-college-educated parents can maintain an openness to science and progress, and the humility to admit that they may not be experts on every subject, so can Trump voters....

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There are millions of us out here who are not "elites," who didn't go to an Ivy League college or perhaps any college at all, who grew up in rural towns in western PA or the midwest, who were raised on so-called "family values," and who reject Donald Trump, Trumpism, and at this point the entire Republican Party with its kowtowing to a wannabe dictator. However, the elite Republicans, or, as you now try to label yourselves, "Conservative" voices always put the onus of something like this at the feet of anyone who is not a "Conservative." Meanwhile, you yourselves are "elites." I am not. And I'm tired of being lectured to by the moneyed classes, which by the way, include Donald Freaking Trump and a significant portion of the Republican Party.... Take the elite talk and turn it on yourselves and your own party for once.

Most of the people reading this post are liberals or progressives who don't have elite power. Most of you don't even live in the places where powerful people live. I'm on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, so I live in proximity to power, but my neighbors wielded power in this election by writing postcards to Pennsylvania voters, and sending relatively small donations to Democratic candidates. They don't steer American industrial policy. They're just people who took advantage of opportunities this society provided and managed to make comfortable lives for themselves, and they want that for other people, including Trump voters.

We're not monsters, and we're not the people who made the conscious choices that got us into this mess.