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This column speaks volumes about the deep and increasingly unbridgeable chasm that characterizes cultural and political life in the United States, one that pits our ruling class (i.e., the managerial elite that presumes to run things) against ordinary Americans who chafe under their rule.

Whatever one thinks of Donald Trump, his presence only has served to expose the deep chasm between the ruling class and ordinary Americans.

To be sure, a number of astute political observers – mostly journalists and columnists but even a few academics – have been warning about the rise of the managerial class for the past century, certainly since the advent of the Woodrow Wilson presidency.

Many perceived even that far back how the Hegelian mindset of these reformers, in the course of enhancing the efficiency of centralized government, would erode the sinews of constitutional governance, particularly as this historically was expressed by Madisonian federalism. Indeed, that, in fact, was one of the expressed intentions of these American Hegelians: to replace this quaint anachronism with a higher standard of governance, which involved governance by a highly educated, credentialed and, consequently, far more enlightened class.

What I find fascinating is how long this elite-imposed social order has soldiered on despite the misgivings of millions of Americans, including the 34th president, Dwight Eisenhower, who devoted much of his presidential farewell address to warn American about its potential harm this class could cause to American liberty, particularly in the singular conditions prosecuting the Cold War in the face of the Soviet menace.

To be sure – and Eisenhower, the former Allied Supreme Commander would be the first to acknowledge this – it’s central coordinating competencies carried the country through World Wars I and II as well as the Cold War. Even so, over the course of time, this imperium has been subject to a measure of second guessing, particularly at the end of the Cold War, as this managerial class arrogated to itself the task of imposing a post-Soviet global economic order which, among other things, required the diminution American manufacturing base to accommodate industrialization in other countries.

This has had the effect, certainly within the last 30 years, of rekindling the spirit of what could be broadly characterized as the Old Right political vision, the older version of American liberalism that viewed the role of the federal government simply as one focused on preserving American national sovereignty and economic prosperity, not on imposing a global imperium.

Meanwhile, the managerial class doubled down on its efforts to build a post-Cold War global order, increasingly more inclined to employ U.S. military resources and disformation and, following the 9/11 attacks, even prescibed forms of torture against presumed captive terrorists. This was augmented by other efforts to “protect the homeland” against both foreign and domestic threats, which have prompted many within this class to call for the circumvention of constitutional rights that previously regarded as sacrosanct.

To paraphrase the 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, we are are now engaged in a cold civil war testing which side, conceived in widely disparate views of liberty and governance, ultimately will prevail.

Until recently, I reluctantly would have placed my bets on the managerial class. Within the last couple of years, though, several disruptions, a few entirely unexpected, have led me to wonder if ordinary Americans finally have marshaled a new resolve – the necessary pluck – to oppose this ruling class.

The most heartening development of all was Elon Musk’s acquiring and transferring Twitter into a major medium of free discourse. One occasionally is struck by the impression that this application not only is marshaling and focusing pervasive and implacable national discontent in this the United States but also is helping growing numbers of Twitter users to connect the dots and to cultivate an increasingly refined understanding of the manifold shortcomings of the managerial class, particularly its sense of entitlement, its sweeping corruption and its enduring disdain for ordinary Americans.