I mostly agree with your comment. My only quibble is that I’d say anyone who gets themselves into a position of power is vying to be an elite, and old elites are largely no longer actually elites in that people don’t look up to them; they’re thought of more as these weird people who weild some power but aren’t really in charge (except when they make convenient scapegoats, in which case they are secretly in charge!). The likes of Trump and Rogan are just as much elites as JFK and Cronkite were, though they treat the role quite differently, and many don’t want to call them “elite” because it disdains the associations the term used to carry, and many modern elites have made a career of being anti-elite, meaning anti the old elite order.
I mostly agree with your comment. My only quibble is that I’d say anyone who gets themselves into a position of power is vying to be an elite, and old elites are largely no longer actually elites in that people don’t look up to them; they’re thought of more as these weird people who weild some power but aren’t really in charge (except when they make convenient scapegoats, in which case they are secretly in charge!). The likes of Trump and Rogan are just as much elites as JFK and Cronkite were, though they treat the role quite differently, and many don’t want to call them “elite” because it disdains the associations the term used to carry, and many modern elites have made a career of being anti-elite, meaning anti the old elite order.