As noted previously in this space, I think The Wall Street Journal’s relatively new op-ed section, the “brand-extension” called “Free Expression,” which debuted last December, is a worthwhile addition, mostly because it provides work for younger writers, some of whom aren’t yet 30. Maybe I haven’t kept up, but if there’s another major newspaper/website offering that opportunity—it’s not philanthropic, obviously, since all media covets a younger audience—I haven’t seen it.
Look at The New York Times’ gasping-for-air op-ed roster, and you see the same old half-eaten cows that’ve stained that paper since 1908: Maureen Dowd, Thomas Friedman, Michelle Goldberg, Jamelle Bouie, Michele Cottle, Bret Stephens (stuck as a fortune teller’s assistant in a run- down stretch of Staten Island) and Dog Rape Nicholas Kristof, all on auto-pilot. That’s generous. When Ross Douthat left for 60 Minutes, there was a predicable, and incestuous, debate among journalists on Twitter about who’d replace him. Likely nobody, even though Christopher Caldwell (a popular choice), Jeffrey St. Clair or Thomas Frank—as I’ve mentioned for years—make a lot of sense for invigoration. Again, since the Times’ “news”/opinion content runs a distant eighth to the paid games and recipes, “fresh air” isn’t on the menu. But Terry Gross? A safer bet than Frank.
But the Journal’s “Free Expression” has downsides: given a mandate, the regular writers, whether Gen X, Millennial or Zoomers, are on an assembly line, expected to produce. That results, for example, in twentysomething Emma Camp’s lackluster column last week (it inadvertently puts a new definition on the word “evergreen”). On August 4th, Camp, under the headline, “’Elites’ Are Whoever You Want Them to Be,” comes to no conclusion about the increasing invocation of the word “elite.” (Atlantic writer David Brooks—MIA recently from Laureen Powell Jobs’ funny farm—is most notorious for describing himself as an “elite” while blowing the trumpet for “regular folks” that he rarely meets, except when interviewing them for a “think-piece.” Brooks embarrassed himself—if capable, likely not—regularly at the Times for his sniffy class-conscious lectures.)
Camp’s first paragraph is as vague as the rest of the column. She writes: “Who are the ‘elites’? It depends who you’re asking. While almost everyone despises this shadowy group that allegedly pulls the levers of society, there’s no bipartisan agreement on who counts as a member. A recent survey by the Argument asked 3,000 registered voters who counted as the ‘elites.’ It found little consensus.”
Well, blow my house down, Big Bad Wolf, for I thought there was “consensus.” Joking. (Also, when Camp says that people, probably just “ordinary” or “regular,” “despises this shadowy” group of Bad Men and Women, she throws in an “allegedly” to muddy her own waters.) I’ve never given much thought to who is or isn’t “elite.” I don’t care. For example, Aaron Judge (when not injured) is an elite baseball player; Ryan Gosling’s an elite actor; and Elizabeth Straub’s an elite novelist, but are they part of a despised “shadowy group”? I’ve zero interest in the personal lives of Judge, Gosling and Straub and maybe they’re bad eggs, but they excel at their chosen professions.
Then this nonsense: “College professors and journalists are cultural elites, but it depends on where they work. The same caveat stands for lawyers and doctors, who could also count as financial elites… Antisemitism remains popular on the fringe right and left because Jews can be construed both as financial and cultural elites.”
I’ll be kind and speculate the Camp had intestinal distress when she wrote that gibberish. First, in 2026, most recently demonstrated by Abdul’s (he gets one name like Shohei) slim victory in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, it’s hardly unique to say Democrats have a monopoly on antisemitism. As for journalists, lawyers, professors and doctors, their 1950s-preeminence is in tatters now. Journalists are almost never popular, doctors are generally perceived as the enemy, college professors never had that much standing except among the academic “elite” and lawyers… you can come up with your own joke. (Except for Baltimore’s ageless ambulance chaser Barry Glazer, who still makes the funniest local commercials).
At the bottom of this photo at Rye Playland in Westchester County are my two oldest brothers. They’re “elite” little nippers, although I doubt they were first on line of buy C. Wright Mills’ The Power Elite when it came out in 1956. I read the snoozer for a sociology class in my freshman year at college in 1973, a favorite of the professor, an amiable guy who today (if alive, and I hope so) is probably a DSA member.
Take a look at the clues to figure out the year: Republican Joseph William Martin Jr., of Maine is Speaker of the House; William Wyler’s The Best Years of Our Lives wins Best Director and Best Film Oscars; the first Tony Awards ceremony is held at the Waldorf-Astoria in NYC; Langer’s Deli opens in Los Angeles; Disney’s Fun and Fancy Free is released; Nolan Ryan is born and Josh Gibson dies; the Brooklyn Dodgers lose the World Series; Boston’s Johnny Pesky led MLB in hits with 207; Frankie Frisch is inducted into Hall of Fame; The St. Louis Browns had the worst home attendance, averaging just over 4000 spectators per game; Vladimir Nabokov’s Bend Sinister and Walter Lippmann’s The Cold War are published; and George C. Marshall is Time’s Man of the Year.
—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023