elites

Tatiana Stanovaya believes it is not that he wants to start World War Three, but because “he believes he must scare the Western elites to show they are playing with fire”.

This ushers in a new set of elites, still white, but with a disdain for neoliberal institutions that no longer serve their purpose.

But his victory was also something else: a popular revulsion toward elites, a repudiation of government, a vote to smash all institutions.

This replacement is allegedly enabled by weak or malicious cosmopolitan elites, often identified as Jewish.

When people are made to feel like nothing really matters anymore, and the “system” and “the elites” and their society are broken and illegitimate, they will engage in behavior that is individually and collectively destructive.