Our national elite is united enough to have the vices of a ruling class, but not the virtues. In particular, they are cohesive enough to be perceived as oppressive by much of the populace, but they are rarely gracious and conciliatory when needed. They know how to make enemies, but not friends.

Culturally and ideologically, America’s elites have consolidated into a regime, with Big Tech, the legacy media, academia, Big Business, the entertainment industry, and, of course, the leaders of the Democratic Party, all singing from the same hymnal, even if they sometimes squabble over the key. But many citizens refuse to join in. //

The American ruling class thus faces an ancient problem: how do political, cultural, and economic winners convince everyone else to accept the system; how do elites secure the consent of non-elites? Members of our ruling class cannot appeal to religion or immemorial custom to justify their place. Indeed, they cannot appeal to much of anything beyond their own supposed merits, both personal (they earned their place) and as a class (they believe themselves to be wise and leading us well).

But the superlative merits of our ruling class are less obvious to the rest of us. Thus, hardly a day goes by without The New York Times, Washington Post, and other legacy media outlets warning that some villain or other — Donald Trump, Fox News, Facebook misinformation, the Senate, the Supreme Court, even local leaders and parents — is a Threat to Our Democracy! By democracy, they mostly mean the wishes of the ruling class. //

But the superlative merits of our ruling class are less obvious to the rest of us. Thus, hardly a day goes by without The New York Times, Washington Post, and other legacy media outlets warning that some villain or other — Donald Trump, Fox News, Facebook misinformation, the Senate, the Supreme Court, even local leaders and parents — is a Threat to Our Democracy! By democracy, they mostly mean the wishes of the ruling class. //

The regime has similarly decreed that racists — by which they mean anyone who won’t repeat the dogmas of critical race theory and “anti-racist” hucksters like Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo — should be suppressed throughout public education, academia, and even the business world. Similar trends abound throughout the centers of entertainment, finance, culture, and even the newly woke military.

There is nothing democratic about this. Indeed, it is the elites who threaten our democracy, such as when corporate media colluded with Big Tech to censor accurate reporting about Biden family scandals, or Big Business imposes economic sanctions on red states over everything from election laws to LGBT issues. The hypocrisy of it all rankles.

Woke capital’s CEOs wave rainbow flags and Black Lives Matter banners at home while using slave labor abroad. Democrats and supposed policy experts pushing to ban misinformation are often leading disseminators of it, from the Russian collusion hoax to the dismissal of the lab-leak theory of COVID-19’s origin. //

Elites are inevitable; their legitimacy and continuity is not. Ours lack the virtue and wisdom needed for good governance and leadership. Instead of expertise, they offer incompetence, malice, and herd-like conformity to self-serving ideological fads. Hopefully, political defeat and cultural failure will force a reckoning.