Ours is not the first time in which the country has divided between elite and nonelite status.

In the years after World War Two, an army of Americans went to college on the GI Bill. Few things have had such a significant impact on the nation’s life and culture. With an education came ambitions: Many of the men graduating in the late ‘40s lacked the wealth and social status typically enjoyed by college boys. But those men wanted to be seen as sophisticated; they had earned the right to take an interest in music, art, and literature. They had the audacity to express their opinions about intellectual issues, and in so doing, they posed a threat to the cultural hegemony of the existing elites.