My biggest objection to this entire piece is its lack of specificity. Mr. Douhat simply waves his hands at a lack of "intellectual diversity" within the "elite

My biggest objection to this entire piece is its lack of specificity. Mr. Douhat simply waves his hands at a lack of "intellectual diversity" within the "elite", without ever defining what he means by "elite" or "intellectual diversity". Even if we confine ourselves to the Washington elite, we find a vast difference of opinion between places like the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute and places like Center for American Progress and Brookings. If we move outside of Washington, we find an even greater range of views amongst the "elite". I mean, a lot of programmers are fairly libertarian in both social and economic views, and don't have a real home in either major party. I think Douhat isn't thinking clearly about the topic at hand. If he was, he'd see that he's being spooked by the shadow of a problem rather than the real problem, which is the rising inequality of achievement and opportunity all over the world. You want to increase the diversity of the meritocracy? Allow more people to demonstrate their merit.