Source: Facebook

By DAVID FRENCH

Over the weekend, David Brooks wrote an interesting piece in the New York Times asking why America’s educated, meritocratic elite has failed in a number of key respects. After all, as Brooks puts it, we discarded a narrow old-boys club for a far more open system that’s intentionally designed to find and elevate Americans based on their abilities, regardless of race, class, or creed:

We replaced a system based on birth with a fairer system based on talent. We opened up the universities and the workplace to Jews, women and minorities. University attendance surged, creating the most educated generation in history. We created a new boomer ethos, which was egalitarian (bluejeans everywhere!), socially conscious (recycling!) and deeply committed to ending bigotry.

You’d think all this would have made the U.S. the best governed nation in history. Instead, inequality rose. Faith in institutions plummeted. Social trust declined. The federal government became dysfunctional and society bitterly divided.