Sometimes it’s easier to hide our heads in the sand, but it’s probably best that we know how the richest 1% feel about those of us who live more ordinary lives.
So Rasmussen Research, on behalf of The Committee to Unleash Prosperity, set out to discover what those who could be considered elite think about the rest of us.
The bad news is the elites live in an entirely different world than we do. The scary news is that these people are the ones who can afford to contribute to political campaigns and legislation across the country, which affects all of our lives…theirs far less than ours. Let’s face it, our politicians answer to the highest bidder, which isn’t us ordinaries who these elites are judging.
Elites?
The survey defined the “American Elite” as those “having at least one post-graduate degree, earning at least $150,000 annually, and living in high-population density areas (more than 10,000 people per square mile in their zip code).” Most of us who call those “cities”.
We’re talking well-educated, well-to-do (if not wealthy) city dwellers. They greatly influence — well, everything. They are the definition of people who insulated from reality and they have a lot of power.
That’s so exciting, right?
They Want Control
Rasmussen asked these people what they want to see happening in the world, and the answers they got should be sobering to all of us.
More than 60% of elites interviewed for this poll want a crackdown on personal freedom. They believe the rabble needs to be kept in line.
Why?
They give a lot of reasons for why this crackdown is necessary, but let’s focus just on environmental issues.
The survey found 77% of elites, including 90% of those who graduated from Ivy League colleges, would like to see rationing imposed on essential items like meat, energy, and gasoline. Put on a sweater, hoof it, and eat the bugs, you small people.
Two-thirds of elites prefer educators to be in complete control of our children’s curriculum at school. They insist that parents with a mere Bachelor’s degree (let alone only a high school education) are not qualified to know what their children should be taught in school and at what age certain concepts should be introduced. So no input for you on an activity that your children spend the majority of their lives doing. Of course the elites (who have a different view of the world than you do) would use this tyranny to brainwash your children into willingly complying with what they think the world should look like.
Progressives don’t have children — they have your children, in public schools.
According to the survey, the elite would overwhelmingly ban things they don’t believe ordinary people should have access to. You know, like gas stoves, gasoline-powered cars, air conditioning, sport-utility vehicles, and “non-essential” air travel. I couldn’t tell from the survey if “air conditioning” included heating as well as cooling.
That matters if you live in Alaska.
Yes, they do sound an awful like the French aristocracy just before the French Revolution.
That didn’t turn out too well for the elites of that day and age.
Competing Worldviews
The way the elites view the world is also vastly different than the way we do. They claim they discuss politics daily (only about 9% of non-elites speak of politics daily). It’s as important to them as religion is for some working-class folks. Perhaps it defines their identity. I can resonate with that —
If the Savior Jesus Christ was a lying chalatan, I mean.
But it gets worse because 70% of elites and 90% of Ivy-League-educated elites trust the government (the Biden administration) to do the right thing. And, 84% of these delusional people believe Joe Biden is doing a great job. Of course, they don’t fill their own gas tanks or do their own grocery shopping.
It’s nice to be rich!
Ninety percent of the Ivy League crowd holds a favorable opinion of lawyers, lobbyists, union leaders, and journalists while 80% of the Ivy Leaguers say that they’re doing better financially now than before. Before what? Just before.
If you have a completely different opinion and life experience, it might be because you aren’t an elite.
Not every wealthy, college-educated person is an elite. Some have interests other than politics and others support traditional American values, but given the influence these wealthy political donors wield, their views represent an existential threat to the ideals of freedom, self-governance and equality America was founded on.
What Different Does It Make?
It’s easy to say the differences don’t matter so long as they don’t effect your life, but recognize the American elite are THE influencers in America’s halls of power. They support the political candidates they think are best for the country. They pay for advertising. They run the business world as the CEOs of massive corporations that donate funds, support candidates, pay lobbyists, and make lives difficult with arbitrary rules and regulations. Furthermore, they steer the media in what it covers, which trickles down to ordinaries like us in the form of incredible amounts of misinformation.
If you still think Hunter Biden’s laptop was a psy-op created by the Russians, you might be a regular consumer of media bought and paid for by this country’s elites.
And that’s a problem because they are greatly out of touch with the realities of ordinary lives. And they’re one Democratically-led triumverate away from taking away your car, your gas appliances, your climate-controlled home, and your source of protein. And you can be assured, they won’t be doing without any of those things. Because they’re more important than we are and they need lives of luxury to think about how to better the world your very existence is screwing up.
Lela Markham is an Alaska-based novelist and commentator who comes from a decidedly non-elitist background.
Your post reminded me of the time I was visiting a friend in Brussels. We were at a work gathering and an accent, other than U.K. or Latin based, cut through the noise. I approached the woman and said casually, "hey you're from America." She looked at me, half sneered and said. "I'm from Manhattan, the rest of America is dreadful."
You would probably like https://alchristie.substack.com/p/the-clash-of-2-fundamentally-different worldviews