Because global elites have been wrong about practically everything.
But let’s define our terms. Elites aren’t necessarily rich or famous, let alone accomplished or skilled. Elites are, first and foremost, people who boss us around.
Long before Hillary was rich and famous, before she was even a Democrat, back when she was a Goldwater Girl in 1964, I’m sure she was just as bossy. I can hear her as chair of the prom decorations committee saying, in a strident and grating voice that brooked no objection, “The theme of the Senior Prom is Au H2O!”
Secondly, the bossy elites have to have a means of bossing us. Politics is the best method. It can be electoral politics. Or it can be organizational politics, where elites snake their way up the ladder of political institutions such as government departments, regulatory agencies, and central banks. Mainstream media outlets are political institutions, too.
Politics has the advantage of requiring little or no merit – just egotism, persistence, and cunning. Being a bossy elite on the basis of merit – the way bosses of real companies, drill instructors, and our moms are – demands accomplishments and skills.
Politics is easier. Politics is also a more powerful way to be bossy. Politics has the full weight of government police powers behind its bossiness. If Hillary doesn’t get her way on the prom decorations committee, she can make our lives miserable in high school. If Hillary doesn’t get her way in the Oval Office, she can make our lives miserable in jail.
We have plenty of reasons to hate the global elite just for being who they are, never mind what they’ve done.
But what they’ve done has been awful.
Elites, with their love of politics, have expanded political systems until the web of government became a huge dragnet pulled through the sea of our lives entangling every little aspect of personal existence.
I’ve interviewed a lot of Trump supporters. Many were not all that fond of Trump himself. But all of them wanted to say “F You” to the government – especially to the spread of government regulation.
One small-business man said, “Nobody in government ever stops to think that every time they pass a new business rule or regulation, that means a pile of paperwork for me. I don’t have big legal and human resources departments. It’s just my wife and me. I can stand the expense of something like Obamacare. I can’t stand the paperwork. It’s time taken away from my business. There are only so many hours in a day.”
A gas station owner said, “I can’t get the federal, state, and local permits to take my old gas tanks out. I can’t get the federal, state, and local permits to put new gas tanks in. What am I supposed to do with the gasoline… hold it in my cupped hands?”
A logger said, “I run into all sorts of political problems – zoning, wetlands, endangered species, road weight limits, OSHA. Then I turn on the TV and the politicians are talking about transgender bathrooms. We don’t have anybathrooms in the woods.”
