I want to say something about the shutdown, but I’m too damned mad. And I’m mad at both sides. They don’t deserve to be leading the American people. I won’t vote for either of them next time. Yes, Chuck is from my state. On to the blog. Schlichter next describes the life of a boy who grows up to be an Elite. People who are not Elite can pretend to be or convince themselves they are Elite. They base their sense of being Elite “upon their certainty in their moral and intellectual superiority to the Normals” (Schlichter). Schlichter says that their liberalism is contagious, difficult to cure and gross all at once, like an intellectual bedbug infection. I see bias there. I happen to be liberal but not Elite. I’m wondering if I’ll get my Social Security next week. He says colleges are a good example of the Elite infection. Their grading method doesn’t adhere to the traditional bell-curve because all students seem to get As. All students are marked outstanding. This happened to me in a post-graduate seminar. The professor announced on the first day that we were all getting As. So of course no one did any work. Except me. I was honestly interested in deconstructionism and wanted to read about it no matter how bad the translations were. Since the Harvard students are all outstanding, Schlichter wonders who they are being compared to; it can’t be other Harvard students. He says,”You get into Harvard or another elite college and you’ve got your invitation to the Elite–as well as an opportunity for training in the correct attitudes and behaviors of an Elitist.” Those who pretend to be Elite are called affiliate elite and don’t get accepted to Harvard. They don’t have power later in life like the real Elite do. The Elite feel called to guide and control the poor begotten souls below them who can’t run their own lives (Schlichter). Lots of Elites grow up as Normals and when they look at their parents, they wince. But the cognitive dissonance is worth it. You know more. You feel more. You are more. And that’s why millions of people identify as Elites whether they are Elites in any meaningful sense or not (Schlichter). Elites can experience the joy of making people bend to their will. Just consider “political correctness.” The Elites have put the Normals in a straight–jacket. Almost every kind of speech that was permissible in the 60s is now verboten. People are honestly afraid of offending someone everytime they open their mouth. Take the phrase “chain migration,” which went from an adequate description of a troubling policy to racially insensitive. In putting certain language off-limits, you get obsure language like “family reunification migration” (Schlichter). If you want to keep being an Elite, like Tom Cruise being interviewed by Ellen DeGeneres, for example, he would never say,”You know, I really don’t buy this global warming stuff.” That would never happen (Schlichter). Next the author makes a rather cryptic statement by saying,”Being elite does not necessarily have anything to do with being Elite. You don’t have to show any merit to be an Elite, but the Elite is a meritocracy. Being Elite is about choosing to be an Elite. “West Los Angeles is a majority Elite enclave just east of Santa Monica and separated from America by several parallel ten lane freeways and a lot of attitude. It was also Obama’s abused lover…West Los Angeles is the land of “Trump is not my president,” though Trump totally is their president” (Schlichter). The author follows the life of a designer child named Kaden, whose father, a doctor, once treated Cesar Chavez, and his life was never the same. His mother is a producer of movies who went back to work 2 weeks after he was born, leaving him in the care of a nanny. Kaden continued the family tradition of only buying lattes made with coffee picked by certified farm workers. Kaden’s parents dutifully wrote checks to the Democratic Party and read liberal journals. They hated Ronald Reagan and his successor, GHW Bush, who got us into a war. Bill Clinton was a breath of fresh air. Clinton “solved all the problems in the Balkans forever. Also, he loved black people. You could tell because he said so” (Schlichter). Kaden is musing about the world and life in general: it was an outrage how Republicans tried to impeach Bill Clinton–he just lied about sex…what kind of idiot would panic over sex? But George Bush, otherwise known as Chimpy Bu Hitlerburton, was the worst. All those wars for alleged WMD. What a fool. But then Barack Obama showed up He was articulate, urbane and had graduated from Harvard. And there was the time his parents tried to tell him about sex. What a gass! In second grade he had actually aced the quiz on sodomy. First of all, they said, sex is a serious issue. He must always get the girl’s consent before he goes to the next level of intimacy. If he didn’t get consent, some lying bitch could screw up his whole future. Also, women should be valued and respected, but always wear a rubber so some tramp doesn’t infect you with a disease. Most of all, they would totally pay if his partner needed an abortion. They would even give her a ride to a clinic without telling her parents if that’s what it took to keep his future secure.**** Kaden went to Columbia University and was drawn to journalism. He had so many opinions to share. He also met a student who saw action in Afghanistan and seemed kind of square–well, he wore his hair short. His professor cautioned the students,”People are shallow and small-minded. It is your job to help them be better. And though they will not appreciate it, you have a responsibility to guide them to the truth. After all, democracy dies in darkness” (Schlichter). Kaden accepted this great responsibility. He liked feeling he was part of something bigger, part of a special group of people with the education–the expertise–to make a difference. He would be special. He would be an Elite.