"Elite" and "elitism" have become pretty much useless as descriptors of anything. For the left, elite basically means "rich white guys". For the right, elite mean "academic/cultural snobs, who may or may not be rich". Accusations of elitism uttered by one side cannot be comprehended by the other. I've stopped using those words for precisely that reason.

As for rebels, while the Laurentian Consensus has been on the back foot for a while, their power is still well-entrenched within many of our key institutions, particularly those located within dense urban cores. In fact, the old east-west dynamic has given way to an urban versus suburban/rural one such that the Consensus may need to re-label itself, perhaps as the Downtown Consensus. In any case, there is still plenty of that old power structure to rebel against, the current sitting government notwithstanding. The fact that a relatively unaccomplished 40-something can run for leadership of the country essentially on the last name he shares with that most Laurentian of Prime Ministers says volumes about the residual power of the Consensus.

Not a bad post but I'll point out that Harper was similarly unaccomplished, having neither experience in a governing party nor the private sector. I think that just means that there is also an Alberta counterpart to the Laurentian Consensus; it just lacks a name. The Athabaskan consensus perhaps?

The "behind the scenes" stabbing in the back of David Orchard perchance? Indicative of the way he governs for sure!

The "Harper as mail room boy" retort that's become de rigueur among Trudeau supporters may have some validity, but it ignores the key role Harper played behind the scenes with regard to the Reform Party and its descendants. Plus, it reeks of classism. While the attacks on Trudeau are a variation on the "trust fund baby" stereotype, the mailroom diss plays on the fact that Harper isn't from "a political family" in the way that Trudeau and, yes, Preston Manning were. He wasn't a spawn of the political or media class. He came from the mail room rather than the boardroom, and thus is seen as a pushy outsider who worked his way in - a party crasher, if you will.

I think that sense of being a besieged outsider fending off the antibodies of the better-connected affected Harper in the same way it affected Richard Nixon. That perhaps explains the frequent comparisons between the two.

http://thewalrus.ca/born-in-the-burbs/

Thank you Rick for finding a writer who simultaneously embodies the arrogance and snobbery of both the old Laurentian Consensus and the modern urban left in Canada. You saved me the trouble of finding him myself.

I guess introversion has become the new left-handedness.

Harper's not an introvert. 'Shy' people don't run for public office, or get on stage and play the piano and sing to a crowd.

Finding talking to we hoi polloi "distasteful" is not the same as being introverted.

Funny. The very article you posted the link to seemed to suggest (and quite convincingly too) that Harper is more of the hoi polloi than the various lawyers, Bay Street insiders and academics who preceded him, and that he has as little need for the company of the rich as for that of anyone else.

Sounds like you're suffering what some have called "Harper Derangement Syndrome".