Trump's Anti-Intelligentsia Revolution

Donald Trump will often be mocked in the coming months as the anti-elitist, anti-establishment disruptor of politics who wants to lower taxes on the elite and who is not above hiring establishment figures such as Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus for his team. The mockery will mostly be misplaced simply because the terms "elite" and "establishment" are understood too broadly: Trump's movement was only against certain forms of establishment elitism which have nothing to do with wealth, membership in a party hierarchy or even political experience.

By most measures, of course, Trump himself is part of the establishment. He's a billionaire who knows most of the country's celebrities and power brokers socially. He went to Wharton. He lives in a Manhattan penthouse. The people who voted for him aren't too dumb to notice that. They weren't fooled by rhetoric that somehow masked the Republican candidate's true status: He boasted about his wealth, connections and elite education on the campaign trail. And even if he hadn't, skyscrapers bearing his name stick out of more than one city's skyline.