The Rise of the “National Class” and Populist Backlash

I love this 1999 Paul Carrington book, Stewards Of Democracy: Law As Public Profession, and I asked ChatGPT to help me apply its insights to hot button issues in the news:

Elite institutions—universities, courts, corporations—feel increasingly detached, like moral commissars to ordinary Americans. In Stewards of Democracy, Paul Carrington, drawing on Christopher Lasch, describes a “national class”: a self-appointed ruling minority that advances values through authority, bypassing persuasion and consent. Judicial “encyclicals,” for example, can insulate elite viewpoints from democratic scrutiny. Noble intention, corrosive outcomes.

Today, that frustration has exploded into populist backlash. Whether it’s Trumpism, Brexit, or anti-ESG politics, resistance stems from the sense that distant elites—be they on Wall Street or Harvard’s yard—impose views out of step with everyday Americans. The fight over “woke capital” is the latest front: calls for corporate boards to “do better” on climate or diversity are increasingly met with suspicion and, in red states, with legislative retaliation.

Texas vs. BlackRock is a clean example. On August 1, 2025, a federal judge largely rejected a motion to dismiss by top asset managers (including BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard), allowing core federal antitrust claims to proceed while trimming some state claims. Case materials and summaries are tracked here: Climate Case Chart. And on May 22, 2025, the FTC and DOJ filed a statement of interest supporting the court’s consideration of the antitrust theories at issue—an unusual show of federal attention to alleged “collusive” climate coordination.

Fast forward a few weeks: a federal judge in Austin blocked Texas from enforcing a first-of-its-kind law that would have constrained proxy advisers from offering ESG/DEI-related guidance without state-mandated disclaimers, finding likely First Amendment violations. See Reuters (Aug. 29, 2025).

Meanwhile, voting rights show the same legitimacy conflict. Louisiana has urged the Supreme Court to bar consideration of race in redistricting, challenging VRA guardrails around majority-Black districts; re-argument is set for October 15, 2025 (AP, Politico). Separately, the Court recently paused an appeals-court ruling that would have stripped private groups of the right to sue under VRA Section 2—another signal that the boundary between elite adjudication and democratic rule-making is being redrawn in real time.

These fights echo Carrington’s diagnosis: legitimacy versus authority, consent versus fiat. When elites—legal, academic, financial—move values forward without engaging the governed, they invite defensive populism. The backlash isn’t a strategy; it’s a symptom. Democracy demands legitimacy earned through persuasion. The national class forgot that lesson. That’s why courtrooms and boardrooms now feel less like forums and more like battlefields.

Grok says:

If you enjoyed Paul Carrington’s Stewards of Democracy, which critiques judicial overreach, the erosion of democratic self-governance through “krytocracy,” and the growing rift between legal academia and practical lawyering, here are some of the most insightful further readings. I’ve focused on books that echo or expand on these themes, drawing from classic critiques of Supreme Court activism, analyses of anti-democratic judicial tendencies, and explorations of the academy-practice divide. These are selected for their depth, influence, and relevance—many are cited in scholarly discussions of Carrington’s work or similar conservative/originalist perspectives on law as a public profession.

Critiques of Judicial Activism and Supreme Court Overreach

These books build on Carrington’s concerns about “liberal” krytocracy, the Warren/Brennan era, and the Court’s displacement of democratic processes.

1. The Tempting of America: The Political Seduction of the Law by Robert Bork (1990)
   A seminal conservative critique of judicial activism, arguing that judges who stray from originalism undermine democracy. It directly parallels Carrington’s warnings about courts acting as a “College of Cardinals” imposing moral preferences.
2. Men in Black: How the Supreme Court Is Destroying America by Mark R. Levin (2005)
   A pointed attack on Supreme Court overreach, accusing it of usurping legislative powers and eroding self-government—much like Carrington’s irony of “anti-democratic liberalism.”
3. The Most Dangerous Branch: Inside the Supreme Court’s Assault on the Constitution by David A. Kaplan (2018)
   An insider’s look at how the Court has expanded its power at democracy’s expense, with historical parallels to the Warren Court’s activism and recent conservative shifts.
4. The Most Activist Supreme Court in History: The Road to Modern Judicial Conservatism by Thomas M. Keck (2004)
   Examines the Rehnquist Court’s activism from both sides, showing how judicial supremacy—regardless of ideology—threatens democratic accountability, echoing Carrington’s historical exemplars like Cooley and Brandeis.
5. A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law by Antonin Scalia (1997)
   Scalia’s essays advocate textualism and restraint, critiquing non-interpretivist approaches like Brennan’s as anti-democratic—directly aligning with Carrington’s call for judges to respect “the common thoughts of men.”

Explorations of Krytocracy and Anti-Democratic Judiciary

These delve deeper into courts as anti-democratic forces, including global comparisons and the judiciary’s role in democratic backsliding.

6. Democracy’s Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy by Michael J. Sandel (1996)
   As referenced in Carrington’s book, this critiques the Court’s elevation of individual autonomy over communitarian bonds, arguing it displaces shared democratic power.
7. The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy by Christopher Lasch (1995)
   Also cited by Carrington, Lasch analyzes how meritocratic elites (including judges and academics) revolt against popular values, using courts to constitutionalize issues and bypass democracy.
8. The Specter of Dictatorship: Judicial Enabling of Presidential Power by David M. Driesen (2021)
   Explores how courts enable executive overreach, contributing to democratic erosion—extending Carrington’s fears of judicial supremacy into modern “illiberal” contexts.

The Disconnect Between Legal Academy and Practice

These address Carrington’s concerns about academization, utopian theorizing, and the academy’s isolation from real-world lawyering and public service.

9. Failing Law Schools by Brian Z. Tamanaha (2012)
   A sharp critique of legal education’s drift toward abstraction and irrelevance, highlighting the gap between scholarly pursuits and practical needs—mirroring Carrington’s enumeration of academic disabilities.
10. The Lost Lawyer: Failing Ideals of the Legal Profession by Anthony T. Kronman (1993)
    Laments the erosion of law as a public profession due to academic specialization and commercialization, advocating a return to practical wisdom like Carrington’s exemplars (e.g., Freund and Holmes).
11. The American Legal Profession in Crisis: Resistance and Responses to Change by James E. Moliterno (2013)
    Examines how legal education and scholarship have diverged from practice, leading to professional disconnection—building on Carrington’s observations about status-seeking in academia.

These selections prioritize depth and insight, avoiding overly partisan rants while favoring works that substantiate claims with historical or empirical analysis. If you’re interested in primary sources from figures like Thomas Cooley (A Treatise on the Constitutional Limitations, 1868) or Felix Frankfurter’s memoirs, those could be next steps for foundational reading.