The Gilded Rage

“As a young man in the nineteen-eighties, Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson set out to claim his stake in the establishment. His access to money and influence started at home. His stepmother, Patricia, was an heir to the Swanson frozen-food fortune. His father, Dick, was a California TV anchor who became a Washington fixture after a stint in the Reagan Administration … As a teen-ager, Carlson attended St. George’s School, beside the ocean in Rhode Island, one of sixteen American prep schools that the sociologist E. Digby Baltzell described as ‘differentiating the upper classes from the rest of the population.’ Carlson dated (and later married) the headmaster’s daughter. His college applications were rejected, but the headmaster exerted influence at his own alma mater, Trinity College, and Carlson was admitted.” As we know, Tucker Carlson grew up to be one of the strongest voices attacking the elite. Make sense? Of course not. But then again, nothing does. In The New Yorker, Evan Osnos on our increasingly strange relationship with what has become a dirty word. Rules for the Ruling Class. “How to thrive in the power élite—while declaring it your enemy.” (Unlike The New Yorker, I choose not use the accent and stick with a working class e.)