The Word Before
Latin eligere: to choose, to select. The elite were the chosen ones, the best, the select. Not an insult. A designation of excellence. Elite soldiers, elite artists, elite minds. The word carried no shame. It meant you rose to the top through skill, through talent, through being genuinely better at what you did.
For most of human history, the elite were those with power. Kings, aristocrats, landowners, merchant princes, industrial barons. People who controlled resources, made decisions affecting millions, lived in palaces while others starved. The ones who could crush you. This was obvious.
The Redirection
Something shifted in American politics over the past fifty years. The target moved. The elite stopped being the people with actual power—billionaires, corporate boards, Wall Street bankers—and became teachers, scientists, professors, journalists. People with education but no power. People serving the public with knowledge.
Richard Hofstadter traced it in Anti-Intellectualism in American Life: Americans have always distrusted analytical intelligence. Intellect is only valuable if commercially successful. A billionaire is a genius. A professor is a snob. But the weaponization of “elite” to attack expertise while protecting wealth—that’s recent, and surgical.
Ronald Reagan pioneered it in the 1980s. Climate scientists became the elite conspiracy. Evolution became elite dogma. Expertise itself became suspect. “I trust my gut” beats “I consulted experts.” Ignorance rebranded as authenticity. Knowledge rebranded as arrogance.
George W. Bush perfected the performance. Yale graduate and president’s son playing regular guy, mangling syntax to prove he wasn’t one of those educated elites. The subtext: smart people are the problem.
By 2016, the inversion was complete. Donald Trump—billionaire, penthouse dweller, gold toilet owner, born into wealth—became the champion against elites. His cabinet: two billionaires, twelve millionaires, five Goldman Sachs alumni. But Trump wasn’t elite. Why? Because he couldn’t form a coherent sentence. Proof of authenticity.
Meanwhile, the targets: Teachers making $50,000 fighting for textbook budgets. Scientists warning about pandemics. Doctors implementing public health measures. Journalists reporting facts. All elite. All out of touch. All the enemy.
Gore Vidal once defined an elitist as “someone who can read the New York Times without moving his lips.” The joke was on intellectuals. Now it’s the accusation.
The Mechanism
This isn’t confusion. It’s strategic redirection. Attacking “cultural elites” serves economic elite interests perfectly.
The question stops being: Why do billionaires pay lower tax rates than teachers?
And becomes: Why do professors think they’re better than us?
The question stops being: Why did Wall Street crash the economy?
And becomes: Why are Hollywood liberals so out of touch?
In 2019, when Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders proposed a wealth tax, billionaires panicked. But they didn’t say “I don’t want to pay taxes.” Mark Zuckerberg warned a wealth tax would limit “the diversity of philanthropic efforts.” Leon Cooperman said it would hurt “the good works we do.” The message: We’re not the elite. We’re the job creators. The elite are the politicians trying to regulate us and the academics explaining how we extract wealth.
The redirection works because it offers a satisfying enemy. Easier to resent the professor with a PhD than to dismantle systems that concentrate wealth. The professor is visible, proximate, maybe even condescending in that academic way. The hedge fund manager is abstract, distant, incomprehensible. One you can hate. The other you can vote for.
The Current Absurdity
Elite universities: elite (bad). Elite special forces: elite (good). Elite athletes: elite (good). Elite businesspeople: not even called elite anymore—just successful.
The distinction isn’t about power or wealth. It’s about whether you challenge or reinforce existing power structures.
Teachers trying to teach accurate history: elite. Billionaires funding think tanks to rewrite textbooks: patriots.
Scientists warning about climate change: elite. Oil executives funding denial: protecting jobs.
Doctors recommending vaccines: elite. Conspiracy theorists on podcasts: truth-tellers.
The Complete Corruption
From: the chosen, the best, the select
To: anyone with knowledge threatening to people without knowledge
Unlike other corruptions—patriot got promiscuous, liberal got inverted, woke got stolen—elite got redirected and class-inverted simultaneously. The people with the most wealth and power convinced working people that the enemy is the teacher, not the boss. The journalist, not the CEO. The scientist, not the lobbyist.
The corruption is complete when billionaires run as populists, teachers are the aristocracy, and expertise is the crime.
The word still means “the select.” It just now selects the wrong people.
The Word Before
Latin eligere: to choose, to select. The elite were the chosen ones, the best, the select. Not an insult. A designation of excellence. Elite soldiers, elite artists, elite minds. The word carried no shame. It meant you rose to the top through skill, through talent, through being genuinely better at what you did.
For most of human history, the elite were those with power. Kings, aristocrats, landowners, merchant princes, industrial barons. People who controlled resources, made decisions affecting millions, lived in palaces while others starved. The elite were the ones who had the power to crush you. This was obvious. The elite were the enemy of the common person because they held the boot on the common person’s neck.
The Redirection
Something shifted in American politics over the past fifty years. The target moved. The elite stopped being the people with actual power—billionaires, corporate boards, Wall Street bankers, hedge fund managers—and became teachers, scientists, professors, journalists. People with education but no power. People serving the public with knowledge.
Richard Hofstadter traced it in Anti-Intellectualism in American Life: Americans have always distrusted analytical intelligence. Intellect is only valuable if it’s commercially successful. A billionaire is a genius. A professor is a snob. This isn’t new. But the weaponization of “elite” to attack expertise while protecting wealth—that’s recent, and it’s surgical.
Ronald Reagan pioneered it in the 1980s. Climate scientists became the elite conspiracy. Evolution became elite dogma forced on good Christian families. Expertise itself became suspect. The pattern: “I trust my gut” beats “I consulted experts.” Ignorance rebranded as authenticity. Knowledge rebranded as arrogance.
George W. Bush perfected the performance. A Yale graduate and son of a president playing regular guy, mangling syntax to prove he wasn’t one of those educated elites. The subtext: smart people are the problem. The people running the country into wars and economic collapse aren’t elite—they’re just folks.
By 2016, the inversion was complete. Donald Trump—billionaire, penthouse dweller, gold toilet owner, born into wealth—became the champion against elites. His cabinet: two billionaires, twelve millionaires, five Goldman Sachs alumni. But Trump wasn’t elite. Why? Because he couldn’t form a coherent sentence. Proof of authenticity. Proof he was one of us.
Meanwhile, the targets: Teachers making $50,000 fighting for textbook budgets. Scientists warning about pandemics. Doctors implementing public health measures. Journalists reporting facts. All elite. All out of touch. All the enemy.
Gore Vidal once defined an elitist as “someone who can read the New York Times without moving his lips.” The joke was on intellectuals. Now it’s the accusation.
The Mechanism
This isn’t accidental confusion. It’s strategic redirection. Attacking “cultural elites” serves economic elite interests perfectly. It shifts focus from the people with power to the people with knowledge who might hold power accountable.
The question stops being: Why do billionaires pay lower tax rates than teachers?
And becomes: Why do professors think they’re better than us?
The question stops being: Why did Wall Street crash the economy?
And becomes: Why are Hollywood liberals so out of touch?
In 2019, when Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders proposed a wealth tax, billionaires panicked. But they didn’t say “I don’t want to pay taxes.” They said taxing them would hurt the little guy. Mark Zuckerberg warned a wealth tax would limit “the diversity of philanthropic efforts.” Leon Cooperman said it would hurt “the good works we do.” The message: We’re not the elite. We’re the job creators. The elite are the politicians trying to regulate us and the academics explaining how we extract wealth.
The redirection works because it offers a satisfying enemy. It’s easier to resent the professor with a PhD than to dismantle the systems that concentrate wealth. The professor is visible, proximate, maybe even condescending in that academic way. The hedge fund manager is abstract, distant, incomprehensible. One you can hate. The other you can vote for.
The Current Absurdity
Elite universities: elite (bad). Elite special forces: elite (good). Elite athletes: elite (good). Elite businesspeople: not even called elite anymore—just successful. The distinction isn’t about power or wealth. It’s about whether you challenge or reinforce existing power structures.
Teachers trying to teach accurate history: elite. Billionaires funding think tanks to rewrite textbooks: patriots.
Scientists warning about climate change: elite. Oil executives funding denial: protecting jobs.
Doctors recommending vaccines: elite. Conspiracy theorists on podcasts: truth-tellers.
The actual power elite—the people with disproportionate wealth, influence, and control—escape the label entirely. They’ve successfully convinced working people that the enemy is the teacher, not the boss. The journalist, not the CEO. The scientist, not the lobbyist.
The Complete Corruption
From: the chosen, the best, the select
To: anyone with knowledge threatening to people without knowledge
The word that meant “excellent” now means “thinks they’re better than you.” And it functions exclusively to protect the powerful from the educated. To prevent accountability. To ensure the people who might explain how extraction works never get heard.
Unlike other word corruptions—patriot got promiscuous, liberal got inverted, woke got stolen—elite got redirected and class-inverted simultaneously. The people with the most wealth, power, and privilege convinced the people with the least that the real elite are people with education and no power.
The corruption is complete when billionaires run as populists, teachers are the aristocracy, and expertise itself is the crime.
The word still means “the select.” It just now selects the wrong people.