When Did Everyone Change Their Minds?

The rich used to try to seem well-meaning. Now they flaunt their lies and depravity.

Jack Dorsey.

How did so many minds change at once? Why did the rich and the rightwing turn, once and for all, from family values, education, and at least performative philanthropy to bald greed, depravity, and predation?

Do you have a working theory? I do not. How did Elon Musk support and vote for Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and then—at the age of 53, with much more gusto and dollars and gibberish—Donald Trump, the avowed enemy of liberal democracy?

It’s like puberty hit the rich when they turned 50, and now they’re getting Sonnenrad tattoos, freebasing misogyny, and trying to get thrown in juvie.

Let’s review. In 2015, when Obama was president and diversity programs were the pride of even red-state universities, 89 percent of Republicans were in favor of higher education.

By July of last year, as Trump hammered away at universities as Marxist hellholes, fully 50 percent of Republicans said they had “little or no” confidence in higher ed. Little or no! Their algos had fire-hosed them with lies about critical race theory and trans athletes—and evidently they forgot about their actual experience, including their college majors in economics, business, fraternity parties, and football games.

What did they do with their new delusions? They decided all of it, from Harvard to the Big Ten, belonged in the shitter.