Twilight of the Elites

An original, provocative diagnosis of what ails America from the most promising political mind of his generation. In his first book, Chris Hayes has written a wholly original and surely controversial analysis of the crisis of authority in American public life. Ten years worth of scandals, frauds, and corruption--Major League Baseball, the Big Three automakers, Enron, Congressional malfeasance, the near collapse of Wall Street, and pedophile priests--have resulted in a country that has entirely lost its trust in the institutions and officials that once provided the moorings of American society. Many Americans report feeling wronged or swindled, and a significant proportion believe that the post-bailout society is fundamentally unjust. In just ten years, the basic social consensus on accountability and equity has been thoroughly destroyed, leaving the balkanized, toxic postmodern political conversation we now have. In the absence of the trust in our institutions that once grounded our public debates, the system has failed. It is this fundamental but poorly understood failure that has, Hayes argues, become the driving force of American life. The society we now inhabit is unimaginably forgiving at the top and relentlessly punitive at the bottom. The lesson of the failed meritocracy is that extreme inequality of the kind the United States has experienced over the last thirty years doesn't just negatively affect those on the bottom of the social pyramid. As we have recently seen, it also makes those on the very top worse. It alienates decision makers from the basic lived experience of citizens, and in so doing produces policies deeply skewed toward elite interests. Twilight of the Elites identifies how America arrived at this pivotal, alarming moment in its history—and raises the stakes by challenging elites and citizens alike to define a new accountability for our national cultural, political, and religious institutions.