Serious question: What is elite consensus? I mean, I know what it means, but I'm talking about specifically. You've used this term several times throughout the discussion, just trying to get an idea of what issues and ideas the "elites" are in lockstep over...
When I talk about elite consensus, I’m referring to a set of core economic and political beliefs broadly shared among the dominant political, business, and media classes, regardless of party, that shape the framework within which “serious” policy debates happen.
This consensus isn’t about every detail, it’s about the major underlying assumptions that guide how elites think about governance, the economy, and social order.
Some key features of this elite consensus include: a commitment to neoliberal economic policies such as free markets, deregulation, low taxes on capital, and trade liberalization. It includes acceptance of the global capitalist system, supporting globalization, financialization, and multinational corporations as the engines of growth. There is a prioritization of fiscal responsibility, with a strong focus on balanced budgets and debt management, often at the expense of expansive social programs.
Maintaining social and political stability is important to elites, who tend to resist mass movements or redistributive policies that threaten the existing order. There is also bipartisan agreement on national security and foreign policy goals, with a broadly hawkish stance on maintaining US global hegemony. Finally, there is a consensus on the limits of government intervention, especially regarding labor markets, corporate power, and financial institutions.
The result is that debates among elites tend to be about how to implement these principles best, not whether to challenge them fundamentally.
But this narrative is now complicated by the fact that this elite consensus is shattering before our eyes. Neoliberalism has clearly run its course, and the elite class is actively searching for what comes next. You could see this plainly in the Trump presidency, when billionaires and corporate elites flocked to support him, despite his erratic populism, because he offered a new political arrangement that preserved their interests.
On the Democratic side, the emergence of the “abundance agenda” reflects a parallel attempt to reshape elite consensus around techno-optimism, deregulated building, and innovation, while still avoiding a full reckoning with neoliberalism’s failures.
Both of these currents show that elites know the old model is broken, but they’re trying to ensure whatever replaces it still works for them.
Despite this change that we’re starting to see, elite media institutions still largely reflect the old neoliberal consensus because they remain structurally embedded in that world. Whether it’s because their funding models rely on the same corporate advertisers and billionaire owners who benefited from neoliberalism, or because their top editors and journalists were shaped by decades of elite education and professional incentives, many of these institutions are slow to adjust to the shifting political landscape.
Their worldview was formed during the long neoliberal era, and it still frames what they consider “serious,” “pragmatic,” or “realistic” politics. As a result, even as the broader political order begins to fracture, elite media often remains a lagging indicator, clinging to a version of consensus politics that no longer matches the public mood or material reality.
