Anne Applebaum writes in The Washington Post about the slow death of meritocracy in American politics.
At one level, the use of “elite” to describe the new meritocrats simply means that the word has lost its meaning. As Jacob Weisberg points out, when Sarah Palin, Christine O’Donnell or — bizarrely — Justice Thomas’s wife fling the word “elitist” at opponents, it often means nothing more than “a person whose politics I don’t like” or even “a person who is snobby.” But after listening to O’Donnell’s latest campaign ads — in which the Senate candidate declares proudly, “I didn’t go to Yale . . . I am YOU” — I think something deeper must be going on as well.
No related posts.