Perhaps never in modern human history have a nation’s elites been more spineless and self-absorbed than in today’s America.  In order to protect their privilege, America’s most privileged are nervous and afraid of conflict even when they have the knowledge, experience, and ammunition to counter specious charges of political incorrectness or the mainstreaming of anti-Americanism or the exhortation of nation-transforming left-wing programs and dogma. 

As America’s elites cower and almost immediately acquiesce to any organized leftist mob, they do not comprehend that these pusillanimous traits have spawned an era of resurgent populism in the United States that is motivated by a determination to rid the country of their malignant influence.  

In normal modern societies, the ruling class, despite their individual personal failings, has symbolized empathy, ability, learning, and good judgment.  But America no longer has a normal society as the unchecked egocentricity and cowardice of the elites is the indisputable sign that this nation is mired in mediocrity. 

Ours is a society that has been turned upside down and, as such, it is difficult to come to grips with the astounding level of deterioration in such a short span of time.  This unfathomable deterioration has been brought about as a result of the abandonment of fundamental Judeo-Christian tenets (the root cause of their self-absorption) and the abject spinelessness throughout all components of the American ruling class.

Despite being their well-credentialed superiors, many college presidents and faculty members are acquiescing to virtually all of the inane demands of the fatuous, ill-educated, and rudderless students in their charge.  Further, they fall all over themselves apologizing for imaginary crimes while mindlessly abrogating free speech and the free flow of information on their respective campuses.  Thus, creating a generation of Americans incapable of an original thought or an ability to reason.

There are a plethora of “don’t rock the boat” major corporate CEOs pouring money, as protection payments, into the coffers of extremist groups such as Black Lives Matter who despise and vow to overturn the very system that these business leaders otherwise uphold and that has created the most prosperous society in the history of mankind.

Instead of ignoring or telling the accusers to effectively “shove it,” there have been and continue to be numerous well-known actors, entertainers, athletes, politicians, commentators, professors, and mainstream church leaders who voluntarily turn their supposed insensitive remarks into a public and demeaning drama of penitence.  They grovel for forgiveness after being told they made an insensitive comment as defined by a small minority with a left-wing political agenda.  Thus, dramatically sabotaging their status and credibility in the eyes of the middle and lower classes.

In the least racist major nation in the world, there are innumerable entertainment producers and directors as well as politicians who fall all over themselves to publicly confess their putative sins and vow fealty to a specious agenda to create pre-determined racial and sexual quotas as well as reconstituting racial discrimination.  Thus sowing chaos throughout American society.

Not to be outdone in undermining society, the boards of major corporations march in lockstep with these same destructive racial demands as well as becoming willing accomplices with the moguls in the media complex and the education establishment in mainstreaming critical race theory, anti-Americanism, and transgenderism.  The subsequent long-term impact on the culture and the youth of America will be devastating and irreversible.

The elites know that eliminating fossil fuels and relying on so-called renewable energy will never come close to meeting the needs of a nation of 330+ million people the size of the continent of Europe.  Nonetheless, in order to avoid any vitriol from the radical left, they are uniformly committed to this inane energy policy.  A commitment that is in the process of permanently ravaging the economy and the standard of living of all Americans-- except the elites. 

The rest of non-elite American society are witnesses to this cravenness and are experiencing the ruinous consequences.  Which raises the question: where is the confidence that should naturally follow from accomplishment?   Where is the steadfastness of those who have a record of success behind them and who believe that they not only know better than the lower classes but share a responsibility for their well-being as well as that of the country? 

Those traits, long the philosophical underpinning of America’s ruling classes since the nation’s founding, no longer govern the current iteration.  Instead, the most common and dominant trait among these spineless “best and brightest” is a superior self-preservation instinct.  Discussions about the well-being of future generations or of the present middle and lower classes have completely faded from political and societal discourse. 

There is no sense of noblesse oblige among the vast majority of America’s elites.  They are for sale while consuming the wealth of the nation as the proletariat are mired in a declining society and an exhausted economy.  They rarely venture outside of their urban or suburban cocoons and are no more familiar with the lower classes than were the elites (i.e., the nobility) in France in 1789. 

Mirroring the egocentric French nobility who sought self-preservation by unabashedly supporting a corrupt and decadent monarchy, the egocentric American nobility is seeking self-preservation by unabashedly supporting a corrupt and decadent Democrat party.  

One of the most perceptive observers of this class and its interaction with the common man was Alexis de Tocqueville.  Over a century and a half ago he wrote that the regression of the nobility in pre-revolutionary France was among the major factors that precipitated the French Revolution and the subsequent violent overthrow of the monarchy and the death knell for the nobility.  A relevant quote from that seminal work:

[The Nobility] possessed annoying privileges, enjoyed rights that people found irksome, but they safeguarded the public order, dispensed justice, had the law upheld, came to the help of the weak and directed public business.

[But when] the nobility ceased to conduct these affairs, the weight of its privileges seemed more burdensome and its very existence was, in the end, no longer understandable. 

Storming of the Bastille by Jean-Pierre Houël

The reality of the burdensome elites gradually and deliberately separating themselves from the common man by either geography, interest or wealth is not a mere circumstance of eighteenth-century history.  De Tocqueville penned a powerful indictment of the spineless and egocentric elites of France who were totally focused on preserving their own privilege.  This is likewise a stinging indictment of America’s elites as well, whose station and privilege are also no longer understandable or sustainable. 

A lesson and a warning that should not be lost on America’s ruling elites in an era of resurgent populism in America.