It seems more as a status issue to me: Kariko had a PhD from Hungary, was a post-doc at Temple U. - not an elite pedigree. At Penn, an elite school: "It was a

It seems more as a status issue to me: Kariko had a PhD from Hungary, was a post-doc at Temple U. - not an elite pedigree. At Penn, an elite school: "It was a low-level position, research assistant professor, and never meant to lead to a permanent tenured position." and after that boss left, "Dr. Kariko was left without a lab or financial support. She could stay at Penn only if she found another lab to take her on. “They expected I would quit,” she said. Universities only support low-level Ph.D.s for a limited amount of time, Dr. Langer said: “If they don’t get a grant, they will let them go.” Dr. Kariko “was not a great grant writer,” ... Kariko was slotted into the non-tenure / adjunct role, and it didn't matter what they did. It happens in private industry too. The problem is elitism overlooking talent and production. It's a brazen, obvious flaw. The US long had the culture - imperfect, of course - of an active rejection of elitism, class, etc. 'All men are created equal', 'every man a king', meritocracy, hard work, you can accomplish anything if you work hard enough, the land of opportuity, the American Dream, etc. That equality, the respect for others, is the foundation of voting - you respect everyone's right to have input and its value. The dominant fashion, a sort of neo-reactionaryism, is to reject that, deride it, rather than aggressively moving it forward. Many people look for ways to justify prejudice, to exclude, to embrace personal ego and greed and to mock public good. I think that's because if you embrace universal rights, opportunity, equality, etc., you can't avoid 'liberal' ideals too, and those are the target of reactionaryism.