Quote Originally Posted by Adam Serwer
If Trump has been right about anything, it is that there is a deep rot in the upper echelons of American society, among people who have been put in positions of power and leadership. Trump understands that many of these people are weak, that their public commitment to civic principles can crumble under sustained pressure. In many cases, those folding have had ample resources to resist Trump’s shakedowns but haven’t been brave enough to do so. They are, in a word, chickenshit.

I want to distinguish between chickenshit and cowardice. Fear is part of human existence. Bravery is the overcoming of fear, not its absence. Acts of cowardice can be provoked by genuine danger—think of a deserting soldier fleeing the peril of the battlefield. When you’re chickenshit, you capitulate to avoid the mere possibility of discomfort, let alone something resembling real risk.
I noticed starting in 2020 that, in connection with the American elite and commoners being more assimilated to one another than at any time before in the country's history, the elites too had degenerated steeply from their mid-20th-century stature in terms of civic virtue, intellect, and any vivid theory of their own corporate rights and interests.