The Caving of the Elites
After anticipatory obedience
Is it any surprise that in the face of a political and cultural paradigm shift elites have folded like so many lawn chairs in a hurricane? Unfortunately, a lot of these climbers have had a lifetime of preparation in kissing the tush of Big Power. Because — and how do we put this politely? — elites at elite institutions have not arrived at their fancy destinations entirely by the whimsy of fate, although, to be sure, Fortuna played a role. Also playing a role in the calculations of social mountaineers is an all-consuming ambition that often develops in the place of a proper moral core. Machiavellian Virtù ought not to be mistaken for actual Virtue. We cannot fail to note that Trump won his second Presidency, in no small part, due to the characterization (whether true or false) of the Democrat Party as the party of the elites.
The Caving of the Elites began even before Trump, Season 2 dropped Ep1. In an early Christmas present to the incoming President, ABC News offered what can only be properly construed as “anticipatory obedience” in the lawsuit brought against them over anchor George Stephanopoulos’ on-air assertion that the Trump had been found civilly liable for raping E. Jean Carroll. That claim was substantially true, although not technically correct. The May 2023 verdict in which a jury found Trump civilly liable was for sexually abusing Carroll. A small but not insignificant distinction, legally speaking.
That having been said, the bar for Trump would have been difficult to clear. Trump needed to prove actual malice on the part of Stephanopoulos. And yet — ABC chose to settle one month away from Inauguration Day. “ABC News must transfer the $15 million for Trump’s library to an escrow account that’s being managed by (Trump’s attorney, Alejandro) Brito’s law firm within 10 days, according to the agreement,” AP’s Michael R. Sisak wrote of the sordid details. “The network must also pay Brito’s legal fees within 10 days.” Stephanopoulos, always more of a Hampton’s hors d’oeuvre than an actual media meal, quietly re-upped his contract with the network a few days afterwards. Shhhh.
The settlement cleared ABC’s parent company, Disney, of the Serpent’s wrath. But that ginger two-step merely whetted Trump’s media bloodthirst. Money and Revenge drive the man, always have, always will. And the blood was in the water. ABC was the first elite media institution to submit to Trump’s excessive appetites, but not the last. Meta ultimately settled a similar potentially winnable lawsuit in January with the President for another 25 large. “According to the Journal, this settlement, in particular, grew out of (Mark) Zuckerberg’s efforts to cozy up to Trump last November,” writes Caitlin Dewey of Vanity Fair. “The paper’s sources said the then-president-elect signaled during a Mar-a-Lago dinner that the Meta boss would need to resolve the suit before he could ever be allowed ‘into the tent.’” Or — in other words — into the new paradigm. Once more: Ought we be surprised that elites prefer not to rock the boat so close to the Met Gala? (Exaggerated cough suggesting feigned detachment)
After ABC News and after Meta, television anchors far and wide, in the words of media writer Oliver Darcy (via TheWrap), found themselves “performing linguistic gymnastics to stay out of Donald Trump’s crosshairs while also tiptoeing around audiences who would have surely been incensed to see them bend the knee and call it the ‘Gulf of America.’” Imagine: “World News Tonight” anchor David Muir doing a lively rhetorical Arabesque and “NBC Nightly News” anchor Lester Holt, counterclockwise, performing a Plié around the mention of the Gulf of Mexico. A dance of the media marionettes, with Trump behind the strings, contorting limbs and arching the telling of Truth.
And it is not just elites in Media bending down. Take, for example, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in the political fundament. All of his life the Senator has played The Game with a skillful, steady hand. Too steady, maybe? From working-class Brooklyn beginnings to valedictorian of James Madison High School in 1967. 1600 on the SAT. Harvard College; Harvard Law. A three-term member of the New York State Assembly, from 1975 to 1980. Congress immediately following. The Senate next. Senate Leadership. Perhaps the exertions of Schumer’s lifelong political ascent have rendered him unable to fight in this moment of American exigency? If so, then maybe he should get the fuck out of the way.
Because despite all that ambition, drive and upwards momentum, Schumer looked pathetic in his choregraphed surrender to the Republican-led CR to fund the budget until September. He was trapped, yes, but he didn’t even offer a performative fight for his demoralized party, which obviously was needed at a psychic level for a party still dealing with a decisive — but not landslide — loss in 2024. A proper leader would know that. Some House Democrats are even urging their colleague Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez behind closed doors to challenge Schumer in ‘28. The Bullwark’s Lauren Egan recently painted a chiaroscuro of the Senior Senator from New York:
Though never regarded as a progressive, and long past his 1980s and ’90s reputation as a pugnacious House member, Schumer at least was widely considered a skillful tactician in the Senate. He has a well-earned reputation for being voracious and savvy with his media engagement. And his work as the leader of an incredibly thin Senate Democratic majority during Biden’s term yielded major legislative wins and a revamped judiciary.
But leading the opposition party requires a different approach. And many Democratic officials are skeptical he can summon it. There is a belief, born from the 2024 election results, that the party must make a generational purge, ridding itself of leaders who have grown too comfortable in their cushy Washington careers.
And in the intervening days, the oil on Egan’s painting has only further faded.
Schumer’s formative political moment came after joining the Presidential campaign of Democratic Senator Eugene J. McCarthy in the Spring of 1968. In a 2018 email to The Harvard Crimson, Schumer credited the McCarthy campaign with Lyndon Johnson’s decision not to seek re-election. “I said to myself, ‘Wow. A ragtag group of students and other assorted nobodies toppled the most powerful man in the world. This is what I want to dedicate my life to,’” Schumer wrote. As a result, Schumer went on to major in Social Studies, later becoming a politician.
Then, as now, Schumer has always been more far more interested in the Physics of Power, in the succession and the toppling. While others, like AOC — who may end up succeeding him — has been more interested in the uses of Power to bring about greater equality. That AOC is essentially now “campaigning” with Bernie, a Progressive legend, adds to the impression that she is his Progressive heir. Lauren Gambino of The Guardian, covering the Arizona Bernie-Ocasio-Cortez rally, writes:
Ocasio-Cortez offered a more personal touch, weaving elements of her biography into her speech – something Sanders is typically loath to do. She spoke of her mother, who cleaned homes, and her father, whose death from a rare form of cancer plunged the family into economic uncertainty.
“I don’t believe in healthcare, labor and human dignity because I’m an extremist,” she said, pushing back on the rightwing caricature of her. “I believe in these things because I was a waitress.”
Just months before Ocasio-Cortez upset incumbent Congressman Joe Crowley, she was a waitress at Coffee Shop, a fashionable restaurant in New York’s Union Square that no longer exists. “Latina and working class, Ocasio-Cortez was demographically distinct from her new colleagues in Congress,” is how Lisa Miller of Intelligencer described her a few years ago. “With the skills of a social-media influencer, Ocasio-Cortez helped bring the millennials and their younger siblings into battle.” And in September 2019, the Boston University graduate became the first Congressperson ever to make a student loan payment while at a hearing on student loans. "I looked at my balance, and it is $20,237.16," she said at the time. "I just made a payment that took me down to $19,000, so I feel really accomplished right now.”
Which brings us to the elite university system in the United States — the envy of all the world — which is in the process of caving, dramatically to the Trump project. No modern politician has navigated the resentments of America better than the President. So clever is he at the Dark Arts that though he himself is a product of the Wharton School, and his running mate a Yale Law grad, Trump won the popular vote in a populist campaign against the graduate of an historically black college and her running mate, who went to a state college.
And upon reaching once again the pinnacle of Power, he went after Columbia University in what is probably the first of many outright assaults on elite universities. “The thing to understand here is that while yes Columbia is capitulating to Trump, the trustees who actually run the university wanted these same outcomes and pursued them aggressively under Biden,” David Klion tweeted. “To them, this is willing cooperation, not surrender.”
Even Big Law is caving as a result of the President’s EO against Paul, Weiss. Trump suspended the firm’s lawyers from security clearances, among other perks of privilege. It proved, in the end, too much. And in yielding, Paul, Weiss will provide $40 million in legal services to POTUS, which will no doubt come in handy to the litigious former New York real estate guy. “Once upon a time, we could feel superior to the shameful moral turpitude of Congress, but then big media owners caved, Silicon Valley founders groveled, and now the once respected white-shoe law firm Paul, Weiss, former home of such legal legends as Ted Sorensen, Adlai Stevenson, and Arthur Goldberg, has folded like a deck chair,” writes Tina Brown, former editor of Vanity Fair, and stalwart chronicler of the Overclass. Always deck chairs with Tina, never lawn …
In closing, it is impossible to watch this amoral assent of the overclass towards Trump’s profoundly anti-democratic agenda without making uneasy comparisons to Wolf Hall. The BBC TV adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s Tudor novels began its second season on PBS on Sunday. I am, of course, entirely obsessed — with the depth of performances, with the historically-accurate natural lighting (cost effective, also), with the period music and, of course, the somber pacing. It is as an IndeWIRE reviewer wrote, “ a slow walk to the gallows.” Damian Lewis, who plays Henry VIII, made the comparison to Trump. But perhaps a sharper likeness would be of the melancholy Sir Thomas Cromwell to Trump’s enablers, in the ivy league, in Big Law, Silicon Valley and in high political office. Kate Maltby of The Guardian warns:
Whether or not Henry was a psychopath, Cromwell was a familiar figure, the legal officer who facilitated the human rights abuses of a despot in the highest office … Last week, Trump unveiled his own list of Thomas Cromwells: the yes men and enablers who will frame US law to fulfil his wishes. First on the agenda is Trump’s promise to deport the full undocumented population, thought to include 11 million migrants.
In an essay for the New York Times, the immigration expert Dara Lind explained that such a policy will rely on lawyers and logistics experts willing to lend their skills to help Trump build “a deportation machine” – constructing vast new holding centres, and browbeating third-party countries into letting planes land. These are pragmatic skills in which Cromwell excelled.
And in which elites, in general, excel. The rewards of caving in to the Trump administration’s wants are magnificent — ask Jeff Bezos. Just another paradigm navigated, wealth and status not only secure in the process, but advanced. It will take true Virtue, not Machiavellian Virtù, to stand up to Trump’s assaults on elite democratic institutions. Because resisting against such a shameless leader is dangerous and requires real moral courage. There is far more to be gained, ambition-wise, in calculated assent than in democratic dissent. It still remains to be seen if American elites, in significant numbers, value the preservation of our democratic institutions more than they do their status, their privilege and their power. Especially so close to polo season in the Hamptons.
“Longtime neocon journalist and Atlantic Magazine editor Jeffrey Goldberg, apparently accustomed to texting National Security Advisor Mike Waltz as a source, was sitting in a supermarket parking lot reading the texts in real-time. He wasn’t sure he was really online with the Secretaries of State, Defense, the Vice President, various White House potentates like Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Stephen ‘Nosferatu’ Miller, and, ominously, unnamed ‘others,’ until the bombs were actually falling on Yemen at 11:44 a.m. – the precise moment that Hegseth had named in the text. That was about ten days ago. Goldberg apparently sat on this a while before deciding it was worth sharing. Yesterday, he published the story under the headline, ‘The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans.’ The subhead read: ‘U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat about upcoming military strikes in Yemen. I didn’t think it could be real. Then the bombs started falling.’ The article included the transcript of the texts. Mike Waltz had decorated his comments with an American flag, fist, and fire emojis because, like, wow, this is what real American Power looks like, man!” (Nina Burleigh/American Freakshow)
“President Trump wants to have his economic cake and eat it too. He wants to keep the dollar globally dominant but weakened to support US exporters. He wants tax cuts that will increase the budget deficit but lower Treasury bond yields. He wants to raise tariffs on other countries to reduce the US trade deficit but strengthen America’s standing as an attractive destination for foreign investment. Achieving these aggregate goals – aimed at increasing US manufacturing jobs and making the US economy more resilient – will be difficult enough. But even more complicated - and risky - are the proposals to bake this economic cake: the Mar-a-Lago Accord. Named after Trump’s Florida estate, the Mar-a-Lago Accord is the moniker given to a complicated set of plans and concepts of plans from Trump’s advisors that would mark an inflection point for the global economic order. Unlike the Plaza Accord of 1985 where five countries agreed at the New York Plaza Hotel to collectively act to weaken the dollar, Mar-a-Lago is unlikely to get the cross-border coordination required to succeed. But even just attempting to follow this policy recipe would create material risks for the US economy and financial markets. More immediately, these include a potential dislocation in the US Treasury market that would trigger global financial contagion and weigh on economic growth. Structurally, these efforts could call into question the Federal Reserve’s independence and increase incentives for countries around the world to reduce dependence on the USD-based financial system and US marketplace.” (Rebecca Patterson/Political News Items)