Learned Elite is Older Than Pyramids

The Pew Research Center’s look at Democrats finds sharp differences
between its elite, liberal leadership (19% of the electorate) and its disadvantaged and conservative Democrat followers (25% of the electorate).

I believe the liberal elite has earned its power, tending to rise through talent and hard work. In the spirit of noblesse oblige, elite members favor using the institutions with which they are associated to better the less fortunate. Of course, it is only right liberals should control how that help is offered.

Elite rule, earned through merit, is as old as the priests who developed and protected knowledge and writing in ancient Mesopotamia. Priests stood between God and the people, interceding for the people. How natural that liberals do that today for those most outside mainstream American life: the disadvantaged, the poor, the minorities—and in return, expect their votes.

In between are groups that believe they don’t need superior individuals or organizations to act for them; they are capable of fending for themselves. These groups tend to be Republican. The liberal link to the disadvantaged dominated when working class poor made up a majority of the population. Not now.

As with all elites, liberals will fight hard to retain their privileged status. Largely non-religious, their raison d’etre is linked to making the world a better place now. Peace, not war. Equality, not plutocracy. Strong environmental protection, meaning capitalism contained. Protection for women and minorities (including gays/lesbians/bisexuals/transgenders). Adding in modernist mainline Protestants, the grouping of secular, atheistic, agnostic, and unaffiliated believers makes up 20% of the electorate--almost exactly the liberal share.