Elite city folks may as well live on another planet.
I wouldn't call such folks "elites" so much as "synthetics."
In the same way that money permits a person to distance himself from reality, city living does the same.
Think about the world inhabited by farmers compared to the world inhabited by a city doctor, lawyer, accountant, nurse, or clerk. The city dwellers live in an artificially contrived world in which the common sense (and values) of a small town or rural person is rendered obsolete.
That's the general idea.
City living insulates folks from the hardships of small town and rural living. And it gives them license to live untethered from the values that make sense of small town life.
As an aside, let me add that there are many people in the cities who are not "elite" or "synthetic"...they are the men and women in the street. The construction workers, plumbers, factory workers, truck drivers, etc. Trump voter's.
I know this because after a career in the big city, I returned to the small town in which I was born and raised.
The bottom line though is that you can live a life that ignores reality, but you cannot live a life that can escape the consequences of ignoring reality.
Bottom line: The so-called elites hate the reality they are trying to escape, but they are also fascinated by it.
The salvation of our country and our world rests with the "real" people in the heartland and in the cities...not with the elites.
The Founding Fathers felt the same way.
Numerous quotes about American being good because it was made up of farmers and that it would lose its soul if that were ever lost.