This is a great post. If anyone hasn’t already read Hayes’ “Twilight of the Elites”, I strongly recommend it to understand this topic at a much deeper level. I’d also add another theory to all this: our elites have been terribly out of touch due to vertical social distance, etc., but a few are starting to figure out what has happened. However, rather than trying to fix it, they’re trying something else: resetting expectations downwards. From Corey Robin:

“The American ruling class has been trying to figure out for years, if not decades, how to manage decline, how to get Americans to get used to diminished expectations, how to adapt to the notion that life for the next generation will be worse than for the previous generation, and now, how to accept (as Alex Gourevitch reminded me tonight) low to zero growth rates as the new economic normal. Clinton’s campaign message isn’t just for Bernie voters; it’s for everyone. Expect little, deserve less, ask for nothing. When the leading candidate of the more left of the two parties is saying that — and getting the majority of its voters to embrace that message — the work of the American ruling class is done.”

This is not to single Clinton out; I think it extends beyond her to much of our establishment.