Tornado Alley (PROG)

[blackhawks]

Career elitist diplomats thinking they should set foreign policy and anyone that disagreed with their policies was to be banished. Not the way it is supposed to work.

Or, career diplomats who are knowledgeable, well trained and experienced people appalled at the misuse of presidential power by an unprincipled jackass insecure about the prospects for his reelection....without securing illicit help from a foreign government.

Whenever I read 'elitist', mostly misused by know-nothing, insecure, resentment nurturing, conspiracy theorizing righties, I think less about the more common connotation of an attitude of superiority or condescension and more about accomplishment and competence.

Oddly, I never think about 'banishing those who disagree'; seeing that rather as a common practice of the Trump administration towards its own appointees.

Some synonyms for "elite" might be "upper-class" or "aristocratic", indicating that the individual in question has a relatively large degree of control over a society's means of production.

This includes those who gain this position due to socioeconomic means and not personal achievement. However, these terms are misleading when discussing elitism as a political theory, because they are often associated with negative "class" connotations and fail to appreciate a more unbiased exploration of the philosophy.[3]

As a term, "elite" usually describes a person or group of people who are members of the uppermost class of society, and wealth can contribute to that class determination.

Personal attributes commonly purported by elitist theorists to be characteristic of the elite include:

rigorous study of, or great accomplishment within, a particular field; a long track record of competence in a demanding field; an extensive history of dedication and effort in service to a specific discipline (e.g., medicine or law) or a high degree of accomplishment, training or wisdom within a given field; a high degree of physical discipline, such as for administration of public service, maintaining and improving infrastructure, addressing extreme poverty, adherence to, individual or on a group level, the commonly used techniques which have tangible and/or spiritual benefits which improves the well-being of many of a societies members or contributes to the common good.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elitism