America Has Some of the Worst Elites, and Some of the Best Citizens

While over-credentialed elites are ruining America, ordinary citizens are taking a stand, confronting evil, and defending liberty and our way of life.

Photo by Sander Sammy on Unsplash

Tablet Magazine recently published an unflattering profile of President Biden’s National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan. I highly recommend you read the whole thing. Based on other sources I’ve read, including a new book about President Biden’s first two years in office, titled “The Last Politician” (I do not recommend it), the Tablet’s profile of Sullivan was spot on.

Sullivan is considered a wonder boy and a superstar of the Democratic Party. He is a well-credentialed elite with a striking resume. According to Tablet,

“Sullivan’s path to power is indeed impressive, from middle-class Minneapolis public school student to Yale graduate, Rhodes scholar, Supreme Court clerk, aide to the presidents of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Brookings Institution, chief counsel to the senior senator from Minnesota, adviser to the presidential campaigns of both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, deputy chief of staff to the secretary of state, director of policy planning, national security advisor to the vice president, and finally, United States national security advisor—all before his 45th birthday.”

No wonder so many influential Democratic party elders have showered him with compliments and admiration, such as “once-in-a-generation talent” (per Joe Biden) and “potential secretary of state or president” (per Hillary Clinton).

Yet, if we look beyond Sullivan’s impressive resume, he has a record of astonishing failures and has left plenty of carnage behind. According to Tablet:

 “His record includes a rapidly escalating stampede of failures: the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, the failure of deterrence in Ukraine, the failed Ukrainian counteroffensive, the economic war with China, America’s disastrous border policy.”

The biggest blunder, or what Sullivan once considered his signature achievement, is how he helped shape the Obama administration’s Iran policy—that Iran nuclear negotiation, which in essence is to appease the Mullahs with billions of sanctions relief in exchange for Iran possibly delaying (not giving up) the development of nuclear weapons. If you recall, the Trump administration backed out of the negotiation and imposed “maximum pressures” on Iran. The strategy was effective, and the Mullahs were on life support.

But after Biden got elected, he filled his cabinet with all the former staffers from the Obama administration, including Sullivan. As the National Security Advisor, Sullivan led the U.S. to rejoin nuclear negotiations with Iran, and the administration appointed an Iran sympathizer and known antisemite, Robert Malley, as the chief negotiator. With Sullivan and Malley in charge, the U.S. recently agreed to pay Iran $6 billion in exchange for the release of six American hostages held by Iran.

On September 29, 2023, Sullivan patted himself on the back for the administration’s Iran policy that he helped create by claiming at a conference that “the Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades.” Sullivan also wrote an essay for Foreign Affairs that went into print before October 7. He made several erroneous claims in it, including, “We have de-escalated crises in Gaza and restored direct diplomacy between the parties after years of its absence.”

On October 7, Iran-backed Hamas terrorists, attacked Israel, and committed unspeakable crimes against humanity, and Israel responded with decisive force. There is a genuine fear that the military conflict in the Middle East could expand into WWIII. Editors at Foreign Affairs scrubbed Sullivan’s most embarrassing and factually wrong claims from the online version of his essay, so Sullivan could continue to look brilliant in public. Sullivan and his supporters probably are willing to buy up all those print copies already in circulation so they can destroy the last bit of evidence of his incompetency and arrogance.

According to the book about Biden’s last two years in the White House, “The Last Politician,” written by a leftist author, Sullivan’s influence in the Biden administration is far beyond foreign policy. He was also one of the key architects behind the infamous “Inflation Reduction Act (IRA),” which even the Biden Administration admitted now had little to do with reducing record-high inflation. The IRA was a massive climate change initiative that has worsened our nation’s inflation problem by adding billions to its already unsustainable national debt.

Stan Druckenmiller, a billionaire and well-known investor, recently warned about the scary math of our national debt this way: “By 2043, interest expense as a percentage of GDP will be 7%, which is 144% of all current discretionary spending. The politicians who told you they would never cut entitlements told an outright lie.”

Yet few in corporate media and the Democrat Party have asked the necessary question about Jake Sullivan: how could someone be so wrong for so many years on so many issues, continue to get promoted, have an even bigger say each time, and be in charge of making the most consequential decisions of our time?

The only explanation I have is that today’s Democratic Party is the party of college-educated elites. They select leaders based on credentials, not competency. That is why over-credentialed figures like Sullivan could keep failing up: the more policy mistakes he made, the higher office he occupied. But it is America and the rest of the world, ruined by his failed policies, that are paying the steep price for his career advancement.

While I am disgusted by what over-credentialed elites like Sullivan has done to this country and the world, I still find reasons to be hopeful. One source of hope for our country came from this viral video: several non-Jewish New Yorkers (who seemed to be construction workers) confronted a man who torn down posters of Israeli hostages held by Hamas. One of the New Yorkers gave the poster-ripper a good lesson about what free speech as a constitutional right is about. Despite using plenty of “F” words in his explanation, I don’t think college professors or over-credentialed individuals like Sullivan could have explained any better.

I found additional reason to be hopeful after talking to Dan Maloit, who lives in Colorado with his three kids. Dan told me that he was nonpolitical before the COVID pandemic. But after his kids’ schools in St. Vrain Valley District shut down and moved to remote learning during the pandemic, he noticed how his kids became unengaged from their classes. Dan and other parents hoped the schools would reopen and offer in-person classes in the fall of 2020. But after learning a group of well-to-do parents were working with the teachers’ union to keep the school closed for the fall, Dan jumped into action.

Maloit founded St. Vrain Educational Advocates, organizing like-minded parents concerned about ineffective online learning. The group had one objective: to reopen schools. The group’s first meeting was held in a public park, and only ten people showed up. However, within a few months, membership in the group reached over 1,000. The group’s advocacy was so effective that rather than keeping schools at St. Vrain Valley District closed for the fall semester, the district first offered the hybrid model and eventually returned to full-time in-person classes.

I asked Dan what the secret of his success was and if he could share some tips for other concerned citizens who want to start a grassroots group and take a stand on issues they care about. Dan generously shared many tips with me, the top three of which are:

1. Lower the bar for entry so more people can get involved. For example, as a parent, Dan knew to avoid scheduling meetings early because parents would be busy taking their kids to school and avoid meetings during lunch. After all, busy professionals wouldn’t be able to make it. Instead, Dan often held discussions with other parents when they were watching their kids’ soccer practice or hosted meetings at his house in the early evenings with free food and on-site childcare (older kids are good baby sisters). Dan said he was able to grow his organization fast because he was conscious of making it easy for parents to get involved and meet them where they are.

2. Stay focused and start with small and achievable bites. Dan said back in 2020 that his organization had one stated goal: getting the school to reopen. One clear and achievable goal allowed his organization to focus and attract broader support from parents who may have different political views on other issues but were united in their opposition to extended school closure.

3. Be creative. To ensure the superintendent of the school district gets the message that parents demand the school reopen and offer in-person classes, Dan drafted an email message and had several dozen parents email the superintendent the same message from their email accounts. Dan explained that it was easy for the superintendent to ignore emails from the same person but harder when he received over 50 emails with the same message but from 50 parents. After the email campaign, the superintendent contacted Dan and requested a meeting. Emailing was low-tech, easy for anyone to participate in, and quite effective in this case.

I’m inspired by these ordinary citizens who are confronting evil and defending liberty and our way of life. They have shown us that taking a stand is not as difficult as some of us think, and everyone can make a difference.

The last couple of weeks should be a morally clarifying moment for all of us. Our country, and by extension, Western civilization, is facing an existential crisis. Our elites have done plenty of damage and we may lose everything we cherish in this generation. So, confronting evils like those New Yorkers did; find an issue you are passionate about, and start a grassroots movement like Dan Maloit has done. We can stop America’s self-imposed destruction and ensure our future generations continue to live in a free and prosperous society.