https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-art...gelo-codevilla
The Ruling Elite
David Samuels: In 2010, you wrote an article, which then became a book, in which you predicted the rise of someone like Donald Trump as well as the political chaos and stripping away of institutional authority that we’ve lived through since. Did you think your prediction would come true so quickly?
Angelo Codevilla: I didn’t predict anything. I described a situation which had already come into existence. Namely, that the United States has developed a ruling class that sees itself as distinct from the raw masses of the rest of America. That the distinction that they saw, and which had come to exist, between these classes, comprised tastes and habits as well as ideas. Above all, that it had to do with the relative attachment, or lack thereof, of each of these classes to government.
One of the things that struck me about your original piece was your portrait of the American elite as a single class that seamlessly spans both the Democratic and Republican parties.
Of course, yes. Not in exactly the same way, though; what I said was that the Democrats were the senior partners in the ruling class. The Republicans are the junior partners.
The reason being that the American ruling class was built by or under the Democratic Party. First, under Woodrow Wilson and then later under Franklin Roosevelt. It was a ruling class that prized above all its intellectual superiority over the ruled. And that saw itself as the natural carriers of scientific knowledge, as the class that was naturally best able to run society and was therefore entitled to run society.
The Republican members of the ruling class aspire to that sort of intellectual status or reputation. And they have shared a taste of this ruling class. But they are not part of the same party, and as such, are constantly trying to get closer to the senior partners. As the junior members of the ruling class, they are not nearly as tied to government as the Democrats are. And therefore, their elite prerogatives are not safe.
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Let them rant and rave about their conspiracy theories and whatnot. They didn’t matter.
Well, they didn’t matter. Because of the power that you wielded, because of the institutions that you controlled.
Now let me give you an alternative. In France, with which you tell me you are acquainted, you have meritocracy in government and institutions. Meritocracy ensured by competitive exams. I, and a bunch of nonliberal democrats as myself, would be absolutely delighted if institutions like The New York Times, The Atlantic, were to open their pages to people who bested others in competitive exams. But of course, they’re not thinking at all of doing that. As a matter of fact, the institutions of liberal America have been moving away from competitive exams as fast as they know how.
In living memory, and I’m an example of that, it was for a time possible for nonliberal Democrats to get into the American foreign service, and if they did as I did, and scored number one in their class, they would have their choice of assignments. But now, you have all sorts of new criteria for admission into the foreign service, which have supposedly ensured greater diversity. In fact, what they had done was to eliminate the possibility that the joint might be invaded by lesser beings of superior intelligence.
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I think about the tech oligarchs who park their multibillion-dollar fortunes offshore.
I would dispute that.
Really? How many tens of billions of dollars has Apple parked offshore? How much money do Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer and Mark Zuckerberg pay in taxes?
Apple and Bill Gates have secured their money, not so much by relocating, but by having become the biggest lobbyists in the country. That is the source of their financial security.
The point of the ruling class is precisely the confusion of public and private power. This is, in fact, this is becoming in fact a corporate state. Which by the way was pioneered by one of my former countrymen by the name of Benito.
So, when you’re talking about the ruling class, you’re positing a continuum between the Silicon Valley oligarchs with their hundred-billion-dollar fortunes and these public employee and NGO types.
I am indeed. That is the meaning of the word party. The Democratic Party is in fact composed of the very people that you are talking about.
Parties are by nature coalitions, each part of which benefits from the other. But they share certain things in common. One of them is contempt for Americans who are outside of their ranks.
You call those contemptible people the “country party.”
Precisely. Here, I’m borrowing an 18th-century British term.
I thought it was a good term because it brings to mind country music.
That too. Have you ever been to Branson, Missouri? Do you even know what it is?
I gather it’s neither Aspen nor Hollywood.
Branson, Missouri, is an entertainment center, larger in every way than Hollywood. It is located in Branson, Missouri, in the Ozarks. It is one of the homes of country music stars and starlets. It’s a huge complex of every kind of family entertainment, from bass fishing to theater, music, museums, anything you can imagine. Now the fact that you have never heard of it typifies the limitations of the ruling class.
My oligarchical snobbery.
No, no, no. You haven’t even risen to that.
Parties are by nature coalitions, each part of which benefits from the other. But they share certain things in common. One of them is contempt for Americans who are outside of their ranks.
You call those contemptible people the “country party.”
Precisely. Here, I’m borrowing an 18th-century British term.
I thought it was a good term because it brings to mind country music.
That too. Have you ever been to Branson, Missouri? Do you even know what it is?
I gather it’s neither Aspen nor Hollywood.
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