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This is fascinating:
During the great moments of social reform, at least 60 percent of Americans trusted government to do the right thing most of the time. Now, only a quarter have that kind of trust. The country is evenly divided about President Obama, but state governments are in disrepute and confidence in Congress is at withering lows. …
Every single idea associated with the educated class has grown more unpopular over the past year. The educated class believes in global warming, so public skepticism about global warming is on the rise. The educated class supports abortion rights, so public opinion is shifting against them. The educated class supports gun control, so opposition to gun control is mounting. … The educated class believes in multilateral action, so the number of Americans who believe we should “go our own way” has risen sharply.
More here. Possible explanations:
Folks trust authorities less in times of economic decline.
US elites have over-played their hand, asking too much.
US folks are morally balancing for electing a black president.
More theories? Ideas for how to distinguish theories?
Why Anti-Elite Era?
See this postby Charles Murray, Short version: per data collected by the GSS, over the last 35 years, all segments of the white population have moved from center to slightly right of center, except "Intellectual elite", which has moved from center to well left of center,
He's constructed a graphic of this data; the trend is continuous across the entire period, not recent.
Brooks has hit something, but he's missing in several points. Gun control has been unpopular with "the masses" for decades. In this case he reverses cause and effect: the "educated elite" has incurred the contempt of the masses for embracing a policy they loathe, This has been the case with crime issues going back to the 1960s.
Oh, and for those who fantasize that the recent eruption of disaffection is all a Capitalist Plot - the Big Money has been hand-in-glove with the "educated elite" for years, There are lots of left-wing billionaires, from George Soros to Warren Buffett (I could list at least a dozen more). Corporate money loves state intervention - they use it to suppress competition and enrich themselves.
One big reason the Republican Party has failed to deliver anything the dissident masses want (such as immigration enforcement) is that it is dominated by corporate interests.
I think you're focusing on the more visible culture wars but it's the class war that's important. The "educated-class" as you put it is disappointed in the masses, but this is a prepackaged masses, packaged just as much to spur on more inanity, but also spurring yourself and myself and like minded to disdain.
But the class war is so much bigger, and so obviously directs the culture war simply through the boardroom.
The culture wars are frustrating, but those are mostly good people out there getting riled up by partisan messaging. Personally I'm trying to change to be less drawn in, and to focus on truly class issues, since that's where the real rape is happening. We've been cowed into the cynics belief that it's economically impossible have less poverty, less war, less corruption. But I think that's only true if we've stopped looking for continuously better ways to govern and improve society. Social democracies are a clear improvement on the stock, but how to get the despotic superpowers to conform?