"Aristocratic contempt for the lower orders is nothing new—just ask the Greek and Roman authors. Throughout history, this impulse has not just been cruel, but petty and irrational. Elites will often undermine their own position and tear apart the fabric of the state to lash out at others. To not just dominate but humiliate them. America has now achieved such broad prosperity that this aristocratic brain rot is infecting, or at least within reach, of huge swathes of the voting electorate."

https://www.liberalcurrents.com/a-disease-of-affluence/

Via Nils Gilman on eggs dot com, but he's now at @nilsgilman.bsky.social