If you are part of an elite group (academia, wealthy, high-end professionals) most likely you live on the East or West coast of the US. If you are a member of the fly-over country you reside in the states between the two coasts. The story of the 2016 presidential election, we are told, was a revolt of the middle country against the elites. Here are the titles of two columns by David Brooks in the NYT: “The Strange Failure of the Educated Elites” and “What Rural America Has To Teach US”. A Roll Call opinion piece included the following sentence: “People’s views of elites isn’t a passing fad. It is an existential threat to government, political parties, the media and even business and academia”. The views in these articles are worth exploring because we need to understand what separates elites from ordinary Americans.
In “What Rural America Has To Teach US”, David Brooks provides some interesting information about two towns in Nebraska, McCook and Grand Island. Unemployment and crime are low, life expectancy is high, and, despite a sizable Latino population, residents do not seem to have changed their life styles nor do they feel culturally threatened. On the other hand, incomes are not high, a high percentage of pupils qualifies for free school lunch, and many young people leave after they graduate from high school. What caught my attention is the high degree of civic engagement in these towns. This is worth noting because a 2018 article in The Atlantic described civic engagement in America to be in significant decline since the 1990s. Brooks makes the widespread civic engagement of these towns a teaching point for the rest of us. When I checked how the counties of these two towns had voted in 2016, I found that Donald Trump was their overwhelming choice, namely, by 83.2% in one county and 66.3% in the other. Liberals would say that if civic associations are the laboratories of democracy with its emphasis on transparency, factual information and checks and balances, this voting pattern is rather inexplicable.
I tried to find statistics about the demographic profile of people engaged in civic activities. A by now dated Pew survey from 2009 shows that urban and suburban Americans had a higher percentage of civic engagement than rural Americans. More recently, a 2018 Pew survey found Americans with post-graduate and college education to have a much higher knowledge of civic matters than people with a high school or less education. These findings do not support the view that elites – at least educated elites – fail to master or participate in the mechanics of democracy. So, I wonder whether Brooks’ teaching point is valid.
Whether rural America can teach the rest of us is more complicated. For sure some rural communities excel in civic life, living styles, work ethos, and so on. But the data overall do not paint a picture of socially robust America in the fly-over country. In a past column in the NYT titled “Blue States Do What Red States Preach” Nicholas Kristoff points out that in many indicators of social health, rural America is falling way short. Teenage births, divorce rates, prostitution and adultery, early sexual activity, and child marriages are in general higher in red states than blue states. In addition, rural America is ravished by the opioid crisis. Interestingly, as Kristoff argues, it is conservativism that is responsible for the underinvestment in education and social services that contribute to these social ills. Furthermore, conspiracy theories, end-of-the-world beliefs, creationism, denial of evidence of climate change, and other fantastical ideas find a very fertile ground with people of lower education and less exposure to the outside world. One needs to read Susan Jacoby’s Freethinkers and Kurt Andersen’s Fantasyland to appreciate the extent of the problem.
What about the alleged failure of educated elites? Brooks argues that educated elites have led ordinary Americans astray and instead they try “to pass down privilege to their children, creating a hereditary elite…”. I would counter-argue that educated parents most often become role models for their children in regards to acquiring an appreciation for learning which mostly contributes to their succeeding later in life. In contrast, children of less educated parents live in places of less affluence and often low appreciation of education and thus of fewer opportunities to make it in our knowledge-based economy.
Nonetheless, there are types of elites that fail to live with a balance of privileges and responsibilities. For example, if we need to find a culprit for the hereditary passing of privilege to children, that’s the moneyed class. But then how can I explain that the good people of Nebraska were so enthralled by a presidential candidate, like Trump, whose success and that of his children is exhibit A of hereditary privilege. Wealthy Americans also exhibit an off-the-wall desire for extravagant life styles that, in my opinion, undermines society’s appreciation for middle class values. I would also argue that the careers and financial success of many members of the elites, including high-end professionals, businesspeople, artists, and even academics, are often more closely linked to the global economy and trends than to what happens in middle America. When our best customers and opportunities can be found abroad, we become less attuned to the needs of the more parochial fellow Americans.
Coastal Americans are more cosmopolitan and feel less threatened by foreign cultural influences. Living in the midst of or close to immigrant communities, teaching foreign students, and doing business with foreigners makes us more citizens of the world than our working class or rural fellow Americans feel it is patriotic. Loyalty vs betrayal is one factor in the matrix of moral foundations that according to Jonathan Haidt (The Righteous Mind) informs our political preferences. Whether fair or not, the fly-over country perceives elites as less loyal to team America. Add to that the fact that the ranks of our volunteer army are overwhelmingly populated by the sons and daughters of working class and rural families who thus become the protectors of the privileged lives of the elites.
Being or becoming a member of an educated, or ethnically diverse, or international business community naturally produces regard for fact-based discourse, receptivity to cultural diversity and endowment with broader economic opportunities. Becoming a member of an elite by virtue of such conditions is the positive side of elites. But using these associations to look down on others, promote hereditary rights, or display decadent life styles does separate one from the ordinary person.
Elites win society’s respect if they prove they deserve their status. If the elites are to regain their credibility, they must become less smug about their success and show willingness to share more of the cost of being American. Enlightened members of the elites must educate the bad and shellfish members of the group about their duty to think and operate with a more community-oriented spirit.
Let's Reason 
Dear George,
Two comments on this interesting (as always) article of yours.
1. The fact that the elite have much higher knowledge of civic matters does not necessarily imply higher civic participation on their part. On the contrary, this reminds me, all the high level intellectual dinner discussions among the elite which are rarely followed by any action…
2. As you point out, the Elite has a moral and civic obligation to participate and act (and be seen as participating and acting) in civic matters. if they don’t, then the civic matters are left to the (typically) less informed general public and demagogue politicians, with dire consequences to all of us.
In short, I suspect the Elite is failing on both above counts, other things being equal. By the way, this is the case, not only in the US but, profoundly so in the Greece as well.
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