Yes, America

In his book The Black Swan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb writes (p. 204),

American culture encourages the process of failure, unlike the cultures of Europe and Asia where failure is met with stigma and embarrassment. America’s specialty is to take these small risks for the rest of the world, which explains this country’s disproportionate share in innovations. Once established, an idea or a product is later “perfected” over there.

America historically has meant crude doers, nouveau riche, not old money, not culture, not refined thinking and manners. But the people who rule America today seem much more about being smart, doing things right, not screwing up, something that as Jeffrey Bell noted in Populism and Elitism: Politics in the Age of Equality, never bothered Ronald Reagan, who would brush off bonehead mistakes, much to the distress of the elite figures around him.

Elites are about keeping others out as much as they are about keeping themselves in. Thus, the fear of failure, the fear of suddenly not belonging. Status, manners, credentials. Europe, not America.

The liberal elite belongs as part of America, but should they rule? One party thinks so. One party doesn’t.