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[SPECIAL JANUARY PROMOTION: Spend $50+ In The FPM Store And Receive A Free Copy Of “Final Battle” By David Horowitz.]
This just in: the ruling class hates your freedoms.
The Committee to Unleash Prosperity (CUP), a D.C.-based nonprofit advocacy group led by Steve Forbes and economists Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore, released a report this month announcing the findings of a Rasmussen poll which confirms what the “average” American already knew: the elites, to paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald, are different. What the average American may not already know is just how much of an existential threat to freedom the ruling class is.
CUP calls the report, titled “The Two Americas and How the Nation’s Elite is Out of Touch with Average Americans,” a “first-of-its-kind look at the views of the American Elite.” This report is based upon two separate Rasmussen surveys of 1,000 members of the elite class conducted last September. It defined the elites as people 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). They represent a mere 1% of the U.S. population, but of course they have a disproportionate degree of power and influence, not least in terms of the topics and views that dominate public policy and the national conversation.
“These results confirm what people have long suspected,” the report states. “Today, there are two Americas.” As the authors write in their executive summary,
The people who run America, or at least think they do, live in a bubble of their own construction. They’ve isolated themselves from everyday America’s realities to such a degree their views about what is and what should be happening in this country differ widely from the average American’s.
The elites’ views arise from what the authors of the report describe as a “fraternity culture” that, to some extent, crosses the political aisle (73% of the elites sampled in the report were Democrats, 14% Republicans). The ruling elite – regardless of political party – is “an exclusive club that sees and experiences America through a different lens than ordinary Americans.” The study also examined a sub-sampling of attendees of Ivy League or other elite private schools such as Northwestern, Duke, and Stanford. Roughly half attended one of these schools; the report refers to these members as “Ivy League Graduates.”
The findings reveal that, in the arena of personal finances, only about 20% of all Americans say they believe their finances are getting better under the Biden administration. Anyone who goes to the supermarket or gas station knows that, contrary to Biden administration gaslighting, the economy is disastrous compared to the Trump years. But a whopping 74% of the elite, and a full 88% of the Ivy League grads claim they are better off now.
On the topic of individual freedom, elites are three times more likely than all Americans to say that we have too much individual freedom (!). Almost six out of ten of the Ivy League graduates think there is too much freedom.
Too much individual freedom. Let that sink in.
It is notable that the younger the elites are, the more their totalitarian urges intensify. For those who are 55 or older, only 10% think there is too much individual freedom, whereas a majority (54%) of those under 35 hold that view. These people are going to constitute the ruling class for decades to come; this does not bode well for the future.
Predictably, climate change is “an obsession of the very rich and highly educated.” An astonishing 77% of them – including nearly 90% of the Ivy League graduates – favor the rationing of energy, gas, and meat to help save the planet. Among all Americans, 63% oppose the idea. The prevalence of this attitude across the board should terrify Americans.
Between half and two-thirds of elites favor a ban – a ban, mind you – on many modern conveniences such as gas stoves, gas-powered cars, air conditioning, SUVs, and “non-essential air travel”. More than two-thirds of the Ivy League grads would ban each of these. For the average American, less than one in four of these voters favors such bans (it’s alarming enough to realize that even that many favor banning these basic civilizational comforts; this reveals the extent to which the Left’s cultural indoctrination about the “climate crisis” has taken hold).
To help reduce the impact of climate change, more than “two-thirds of elites (70%) said they would pay $500 or more each year in taxes and higher costs… while nearly as many average Americans (72%) said they would only be willing to pay $100 or less a year.” It’s depressing to realize that so many Americans believe that politicians are going to put higher taxes to good use, much less to actually change the weather.
Surprisingly, about half of Americans apparently hold a favorable opinion of lawyers, lobbyists, union leaders, or journalists (I would expect this figure to be much lower, especially considering the total collapse of trust in journalism today). Contrast this with the almost 80% of elites and the nearly 90% of elite college graduates who have a positive view of this powerful group of professionals.
Politically, 28% of Americans, as opposed to 67% of the elite, have a favorable opinion of Congress. As for President Biden himself, whose approval rating is cratering among most voters, his performance earned approval from an eye-popping 84% of the elites. Eighty-four percent think the decrepit puppet Joe Biden, who can’t even find his way out of a conference room without being guided by a handler or his wife, is doing a great job.
On the hotly-contested issue of education: two-thirds (67%) of the elites would prefer a candidate who said education professionals rather than parents should decide what children are taught in school — only 38% of the public agrees. I have to assume that that 38% somehow remains clueless about what predominately far-left educators are actually teaching in schools: the tenets of critical race theory, the perversions of gender ideology, anti-capitalism, anti-“colonialism,” social justice activism, and a self-loathing for our own country and civilization. And yet two-thirds of the elites want to keep those activists in control of our children’s education and remove parents from the equation altogether.
As you might expect, the elites exhibit “an extraordinary level of trust in the government.” Contrary to Ronald Reagan’s quip that the nine most terrifying words in the English language are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help,” 70% of elites trust the federal government to do the right thing most of the time. That is more than twice the national average. The survey notes that among the most politically active members of the elite, that figure rises to a jaw-dropping 89%.
The CUP report concludes that the elites “are wildly out of touch with the American people,” particularly on the vital issue of individual freedom. Indeed, the authors warn that the “overall views of the Elites represent an existential threat to America’s founding ideals of freedom, equality, and self-governance.” [Emphasis added]
Is it any wonder that Donald Trump, who technically could be categorized as one of the elites but who is sneered at by that same ruling class both here and abroad as a “populist,” has such passionate support on the Right? It is precisely because he threatens to take a wrecking ball to the ruling class’ vision of totalitarian governance that he strikes such panic in the cold hearts of globalists at home and among the imperious Davos crowd internationally.
As the Committee to Unleash Prosperity report demonstrates, there are two Americas. But ultimately, to quote the movie Highlander, there can be only one. And whichever vision prevails – populist or elitist – will determine whether America still has a future as the land of the free.
Follow Mark Tapson at Culture Warrior
You can tell by my writing, I didn’t learn a lot, in school, but I did learn one thing. Populism is bad. Then Trump was elected. So I awoke one day and realized, wait a minute, I am the blue collar, Populist, No Nothing, boogie man the powers that be hate. Propaganda and indoctrination work.
There is one America, it is the one I grew up with all else is fraud and lies.
The elites, oligarchs, and globalists want to run the New World Order. There will be no distinctions in countries anymore, just a conglomeration of nations all alike. Theres two Americas, those who do right and those who do wrong. Those who obey laws and those who don’t. Evil is descending on this planet, and people must stand up for whats right.
“On the hotly-contested issue of education: two-thirds (67%) of the elites would prefer a candidate who said education professionals rather than parents should decide what children are taught in school — only 38% of the public agrees.”
If true let the dunderhead elitists pay for the public schools and put their stupid progeny in them.
And cut my property taxes by 90% so it doesn’t go to the education industrial complex that is ripping us off.
Ironically, Nazis and Stalinists also believed that educators should decide what children are taught in school. Hmmm…
The Nazis introduced new curricula that was propagandistic in favor of the Nazi state. The same sort of thing is now done in public schools by the progressive left – propagandizing our children to hate themselves (if white) and despise the American heritage.
The woke leftist dems DEI CRT racist brainwashing and indoctrination
of the yoots of America in American government public schools is insidious and evil.
It is damaging and harming and ruining the yoots. It must be stopped cold now.
Otherwise America will be kaput … ruined beyond repair in just a few years.
Count on it … and prepare for it.
Take care of yourself, your family, your children, your like-minded friends ….
The devil take the hindmost.
Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man. Jesuit maxim
Now you know why they want your children, they are easier to brain wash than adults.
There is only one America. However it is populated by ordinary people who still believe in the nation state and the constitution, and an upper crust of citizen-of-the-world degenerates who don’t give a damn about patriotism or national security.
Those are are people who don’t care that China killed more than a million Americans with a virus and stifled all investigation of it, and they are the ones championing the invasion occurring at our southern border, all of which is “good for business.”
Make no mistake: Above all else they are evil. And most ominously, they no longer care that you know it.
The arrogance of the elite woke leftist ruling class has no limits.
They have become depraved and psychopathic in many ways.
Good article, Mr. Tapson.
What brings to mind is… Isn’t it the case in pretty much every country in the world,? There are the elites and then, everybody else. We see it here too in Canada, and just like in the US, our middle class is being squeezed out.
It seems that this divide exists on a global scale, and is even more prevalent in underdeveloped countries, where the elites live in palaces with 50 servants and a collection of Bentleys, Bugattis, Rolls-Royces and Mercedes-Benzes, while everybody else is starving just outside their iron gates.
And these elites get together in luxury in Davos and want to dictate how the rest of us “should” live.
These findings are even more egregious because in my area the salary cut off us mentioned is a modest living, hardly elite, as is a graduate degree which many have ( just go online and get one).
Let’s not forget that they ARE, after all, only one percent of the global population. I like those odds. They can run, they can hide, but they can’t enslave us all. I’d say the numbers are ultimately in our favor, and that’s encouraging.
Excellent post, Mark …
… but our e-lights are not just out of touch with We the People …
American e-lights are out of touch with reality.
Bret Weinstein in a recent interview with Tucker said it in pithy way, which I will quote …
… “Whether they, you know, the thing that worries me most, actually, that
… whatever is driving this is not composed of diabolical geniuses who at least have some plan for the future,
… but it’s being driven by people who actually do not know what kind of hell they are inviting.
… They are going to create a kind of chaos from which humanity may well not emerge. ”
h/t to Woodhouse76 … whatever that is.
The rich really are different.
They have lots and lots or money.
In general this wealth is permanent and provides tremendous personal security.
Consequently, such great wealth provides for great power … political power.
Great wealth and great power corrupts.
And great wealth and great absolute power will, most likely, corrupt absolutely.
Which is what is happening in America today.
I’m not surprised to read about the high percent of “elites” supporting the various totalitarian tendencies noted. But it was nevertheless refreshing to see all the numbers laid out so clearly.
Until very very recently, the “Right” in America was all behind the rich, constantly defending them as the rightful beneficiaries of free-market economics (“capitalism” in Marxist jargon). Now we (myself included) are waking up to the fact that today’s rich are mainly amoral shady characters who got to where they are by gaming the system, and are now engineering things to make sure that they cannot possibly be toppled from their perches or even slightly demoted.
The middle class (the people who actually produce things and services) are their worst enemy, and all of their plans are directed to eliminating and crippling the middle class. If they do not ‘succeed’ in destroying civilization in their hunger to taste the meat of the goose that lays the golden eggs, we will have to decide what course of action against them is morally justified and practically achievable.
These “elites” better hope their strong-held views of what should be don’t lead to another French revolution. History repeating itself?
They know very well that a revolt would be forthcoming, and have been forestalling it in many ways, in particular by intense sabotage of education, so that the people can’t think clearly enough to see who are their enemies, as well as vast amounts of media propaganda and finally, restriction of the right to bear arms. They think that they have got it all figured out. Let’s wait and see.