Editor's Notes: The Culture of Elite Conformism Enabled the Capitulations of the Second Trump Term

Earlier this week, we published Saul Austerlitz talking about the wave of elite capitulations that began last year and has continued into this one.

Powerful people will not save us.  To reach a less dire future, we will actually have to fight all the Maurie McInnises of the world and her brethren, who insist on being sensible and cautious as the arsonists surround our homes and flick matches at the walls. I do not trust people with great power anymore because they have demonstrated, again and again and again, that very few of them have the will or the desire to hold the line against American tyranny. 

I will admit to being surprised at the extent to which elites in 2025 in particular seemed to simply surrender without any fight whatsoever, despite still holding a great deal of social power.

But I should not have been. For some time now, I have thought that the most elite and prestigious positions suffer from cultures of extreme conformity.

I originally considered this question in the context of the "cancel culture" and "woke" debates circa 2019–2021.