It is unfashionable to say good things about the “elite,” but it is time to do so.
In politics, the word “elite” has much the same effect as one of those rubber mallets that produce a reflexive kick when tapped on an exposed nerve. Utter it in mixed company and half the room is apt to foam at the mouth.
The antipathy displayed is understandable and to an extent justified. The
Tea Party
and
Trumpsters
irrupted into U.S. politics because a portion of the electorate accurately judged that Washington governed not in the interests of the nation’s 333 million inhabitants, whose concerns were often ignored, but for the benefit of a comfortable, smug, entitled, and arrogant upper stratum. Eventually, in 2016, despairing voters elected a sledgehammer to be president because their patience had ended and they wanted things smashed.
But there is a big difference between government for the elite, which is obviously wrong, and government by the elite, which — bear with me — is the way things should be. This country should be governed for everybody, not just for favored castes. But that doesn’t mean it should or can properly be governed by just anybody. It is distinctly worse for America to have fools and cranks running the show than to have elected representatives with wisdom, knowledge, judiciousness, and a strong sense of decency and proportion.
This elite, this governing class, should not be a closed and permanent caste of the privileged. It should constantly be replenished and refreshed by an influx of high-caliber people from all walks of life. It should be open to anyone with the intelligence, learning, energy, and achievements to enter it.
But we have a problem. Our culture’s extreme egalitarianism has obliterated vital distinctions. It has erased the dividing lines between good and evil, right and wrong, criminal and victim, success and failure, couth and uncouth. That is why socialism is so corrosive of high standards everywhere it is tried.
That same blunt egalitarianism has also deliberately obscured the difference between ignorance and knowledge, foolishness and wisdom, impressive and contemptible, compelling argument and shallow show. And the ugly results are apparent not just on the traditionally egalitarian Left but also, ironically, on the Right, which wrongly thinks itself free of socialist impulses.
Which brings us to some of the 20 rebels who exploited the
Republicans
’ narrow majority in the
House of Representatives
and used it to gouge concessions they didn’t deserve and shouldn’t have won from Speaker
Kevin McCarthy
(R-CA) before letting him take the gavel.
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It is lamentable that such excruciating types as Reps.
Lauren Boebert
(R-CO) and
Matt Gaetz
(R-FL) should be in government, let alone that they should exercise outsize control over it. But they and their ilk leveraged their marginal positions to secure increased power. Gaetz sought an important chairmanship, in Karl Rove’s jewel-like phrasing, “despite lacking seniority and competence.”
He and the others may one day acquire those qualities and then be fit to govern. Until that time, however, they stand as cardinal examples of why we should want America governed by the elite whose achievements fit them for the task.
