I'm not sure I at all agree with that quote though. Most of what he's describing was equally true of the old landed aristocracy or other wealthy families of the

I'm not sure I at all agree with that quote though. Most of what he's describing was equally true of the old landed aristocracy or other wealthy families of the past. It feels like someone who didn't grow up rich now being rich and going "Wow, rich people live differently" as if that's some revelation and not something that's been true for centuries. Who does he think went to Harvard and Yale and Princeton and Oxford and Cambridge before now? Those people felt as superior if not more superior to a random person in "normal america" than the current crop of new wealth. The Gettys and the Morgans were probably even more detached from the rest of the country than anyone is now and likely had more overt power over their lives than their modern equivalents. I don't mean this as a defense of these people, just that "the elites don't have the best interests of the population at heart" is a complaint as old as civilization. I don't think Greer or Yang makes a compelling argument that the 2019 American moment is worse than even recent memory. Greer tries to make a point about how people had smaller goals in the past, and fought more for their local interests and prestige, something I'm both not sure I agree with and would love a citation for, and also looks past the fact that the major WASPy families did literally run the federal government for decades! Often to the detriment of states and regions they cared less about, which seems to be what he's claiming will be an issue with this new elite.