A Diagnosis of America's New Elite

Jacob and Eric open this episode with the recent College Republican National Chair election, which played out like a bad episode of House of Cards. For the main topic, Jacob analyzes conservative commentator David Brooks’s recent article “How the Bobos Broke America." In it, Brooks revisits his 2000 book Bobos in Paradise, which identified the rising young elite who would shape the American upper class of the 21st century. Brooks sees a dire picture of an America bitterly fractured by class, which this new educated, urban elite caused by disrupting the traditional class markers and paths to upward mobility. This diagnosis provides possible paths to solutions before America disintegrates into irreconcilable factions based on domination rather than cooperation.

 

Timestamps

00:00 Intro

05:11 College Republicans go full banana republic

23:24 Main Topic: NYT’s conservative commentator David Brooks revisits his Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There from 21 years ago to see how America’s new elites are faring today.

23:23 Bobos vs Boubours: The Age of the Hipster

30:30 Who are elites today? What makes one an elite?

44:11 Financial Correctness of the New Elite and the Elite’s Impact on Inequality

59:32 How the new elites have scrambled parties on the Left

01:00:58 Cultural Correctness of the New Elite

01:08:56 Brooks identifies and diagnoses the political and social backlash to the new elite

01:20:45 The Blue and Red Hierarchies of Today

01:26:44 The Rung of Bobos Driving Cancel Culture, How They Differ from Their Elder Bobos, and How They Use Activism for Social and Economic Advancement

01:28:32 The Young Bobos Turn Their Cancel Culture Guns on DaBaby

01:45:08 Where Brooks sees Joe Biden fitting into all of this

01:47:20 Critique of Brooks’s diagnosis of and prescription for America’s political class divide

 

SHOWNOTES:

After cicadas, the D.C. area has a new bug to deal with: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/08/03/pyemotes-oak-tree-itch-mites-cicada-washington-dc-region/5478360001/

College Republicans National Committee (CRNC) scandalized by election fraud in race for National Chairman: https://amgreatness.com/2021/08/02/the-collapse-of-the-college-republicans/

CRNC members accused of planning fake sexual assault allegations against political opponents: https://spectatorworld.com/topic/college-republicans-fake-sexual-assault-allegations-benjamin-rajadurai/ 

David Brooks’ article on the “new elite:” https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/09/blame-the-bobos-creative-class/619492/