Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge turned decisively against the educated classes too.
So tell me, Myrddin, do you expect similar social consequences as occurred in Cambodia from a "decisive turn against the educated classes" will/would ever occur here in America?
If not, then what is the point of your allusion to Pol Pot?
Never forget that it was a "progressive" ideologue seeking to destroy political opposition and raze the settled ways of traditional Cambodian society unto rubble (to "clear the decks" for his unchallengeable power) that caused the destruction of the educated classes in Cambodia. After all, they were the carriers of historical Cambodian tradition from one generation to the next.... As such, they had to be destroyed. ("You can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs." — Lenin)
In Pol Pot's book, the price of Progress required the destruction of all "cultural resistance...." Over two million Cambodians were slaughtered to secure this result.
Do you worry that members of the (unorganized) Tea Party Movement will mount a successful (bloody) coup against the educrats, technocrats, and bureaucrats that fill the ranks of the Obama administration?
I understand David Brooks was gratified that the type of person that Obama chose to surround himself with in office held advanced degrees from the most prestigious institutions in the nation. Almost all of his appointees do. Thus we are to believe that we have highly intelligent people "in charge."
But from my point of view, a good many of these academic types are morons (once you get them out of their narrow "specialty" — i.e., many of them really never have learned how to think critically, just to regurgitate the "sacred received texts" of their speciality); and in some cases, even possibly certifiably insane. WRT these latter, their utter contempt for settled American ways and enduring values to me bespeaks their utter unfitness for office. Their contempt for the Constitution makes them dangerous — and unfortunately, that starts in the Oval Office....