Not "Elite" But "The Connected Class"

That's the Difference

Why do people want to attend an Ivy League or comparable school? The education isn’t actually that much better. You can get a great education at a state university if you study hard and take the right professors. You can get a great education at a small college if you study hard and work on developing relationships with your professors. Professors at small colleges often take a deep interest in their students. Professors at big universities and Ivies might take an interest in students but most of them actually enjoy the research part.

No, people will do anything to attend an Ivy because of the network. All of a sudden, you have the moniker and stamp of approval. However, it doesn’t mean you will be anointed and receive all the blessings of the network. There are other hoops to jump through to do that. In addition, if you run afoul of the norms and standards of the network, your reputation is trashed.

The best parody I have ever read is the old Iowahawk blog linked here.

The Connected Class has its own rules and norms. For example, there is “free speech” but it’s not really free speech like we think about it. They own guns, but they don’t own pedestrian guns but rifles and shotguns with wonderful stocks and engraving on the receiver. Sometimes, they walk among us but most of the time they remain behind closed oak doors and in black cars.

Of course, there are exceptions. Some of The Connected Class go “Bohemian” but there is always an excuse for that.

Trump joined The Connected Class. He rejected it. He saw it for what it was. It not that they aren’t “nice people”. They are nice people. Cultured. They look good. But, at the end of the day, the rules they make aren’t for them and they don’t have to live by them.

The Connected Class is attempting to trash JD Vance. Ironically, Bill Clinton left lower middle-class life for Georgetown and Yale Law but he’s okay. Hillary Rodham unburdened herself from a very tough upper-middle-class upbringing in Park Ridge, IL to go to Wellesley and Yale Law. She’s accepted. Barack Obama left a very wealthy upbringing in Hawaii for Occidental/Columbia and Harvard Law. He cleans up well according to Joe Biden and is universally admired and accepted. Obama’s wife left the confines of a politically connected middle-class household in Chicago for Princeton and Harvard Law. She is revered.

JD grew up dirt poor and abused in rural Ohio. He was an enlisted man in the military (egods, not an officer?) and graduated from a state school. Then, he abused his potential privileges at Yale Law. The Connected Class liked him when he first wrote Hillbilly Elegy and we were able to virtue signal around it. The Connected Class loved the fact he had an interracial marriage. “Oh, he is so progressive! Their children are so cute.” JD was uncomfortable with the morals and culture of The Connected Class.

As soon as he came out of the closet as a Republican, it was over.

Usually, the trashing of someone is not so public. Usually, it’s done at a cocktail party but based on my X-feed it’s in public at the convention.

“You know John Smith?” is the start of the conversation.

“Oh, yes.” is the proper response even if you don’t know John Smith.

They might qualify the respondent, “How did you meet him?”

Quickly, the person comes up with an answer. “We were in the same class at Brown” or, “We went to the same summer camp.” or, “We went to the same prep school.” or something like that. “I know of him, but don’t actually know him well.”

“Why?”, the respondent asks.

The conversation starter quickly does mental gymnastics inside their head to decide whether to spill the beans or not. “Well, Smith is working for this weird company now run by a guy named Al Jones. That Jones guy is a radical.” (It’s okay to be Bill Ayers-like radical if you stay within the confines of the protected class.)

“Oh, Jones. Wow. Why on earth would you work for someone like that?”

And so it goes. This is a tame generic way of trashing someone.

As I said, not everyone attending and graduating from an Ivy, or a similar school, like Stanford, becomes a member of The Connected Class. They can become “Connected Class Adjacent” where they know people in The Connected Class and they get invited to parties with The Connected Class but truly, when the spoils that come to The Connected Class are distributed, they aren’t on the list.

There are people who trade and stay a part of The Connected Class but still buck the system. William F. Buckley is one person I can think of. He was able to singularly be so different and successful that The Connected Class could claim him and then say he was an “oddball”.

There are people who The Connected Class misread. Peter Thiel comes to mind. An Ohio boy who escaped the boredom and mundaneness of the Midwest for Stanford. “Gosh, he could have gone to Ohio State.” Paypal, the first investor in Facebook. A tech mogul! Plus, he was gay! Oh, the sheer joy. What a fine-looking man.

When he came out for Trump, it was over.

What’s it take to become a card-carrying member of The Connected Class? First, it takes actual connections to power. You have to know the right people in the right places and be able to make introductions to them to get things done. Get the interview at the investment bank or law school despite the poor performance of your beneficiary. “Hey, at least I got you a bonafide look?” if they don’t get the gig. If they do get the gig, you take full credit and you never let the beneficiary forget it. They better remember, and when they have the opportunity their full faith and credit should be on your doorstep.

Second, it takes money. You go to the right charity balls. You join the proper clubs, country, and social. You shop at the right places and do business with the correct salespeople in those places. Heaven forbid you spend your money with the great unwashed. You live in the right building or address.

If you have money and don’t have connections, you can join The Connected Class but you better have a lot of it. You also have to conform entirely to The Connected Class’s way of thinking and operating inside our social system.

One trick of The Connected Class is to make you think you are part of it but you really aren’t. That way, they can use you when they need you.

The Connected Class used to pretend it was Republican but voted Democratic when it mattered. Today, The Connected Class is primarily Democratic and would never vote Republican. There is a connected class on the conservative Republican side, but it doesn’t operate like the Democratic one. It’s much more accepting and it rotates a lot more. It’s the Democratic Connected Class that tries to hold up and keep the Republican Connected Class top of mind. Families like The Bush’s and The Romney’s. The Democratic Connected Class can count on beating them and using them so they try to keep them at the front of the pack.

Trump is not that way. He and anyone that goes with him must be destroyed at all costs and it doesn’t matter if we lie, cheat, or steal to destroy them.

Above all, The Connected Class wants control. They don’t like wide variability. They want predictable outcomes. Oh, and a good Pimm’s cup during midday in the summer.

What does The Connected Class fear?

• Independent thinking and action that runs afoul of their ways.

• Actions that upset the normalcy and control mechanisms they have. Hence, DEI and Affirmative Action are fine (virtue signaling) and it has the added advantage of being controlled by them so they can further sift and keep out the people they want to keep out.

• Merit

• Creative destruction

• Innovation they can’t lead, fund, or make money from

• Economic independence for people not in The Connected Class

• Anything major that allows for self-reliance, like guns or free speech.

Once you understand it, you can spot it a mile away when you walk into a room.