Politics & Power Quote by Ed Gillespie

Calling Democrats “elitist” is less an observation than a strategic reframe: it shifts politics from a fight over policy to a fight over identity. Ed Gillespie, a veteran Republican operative turned politician, is deploying one of the party’s most reliable wedges - not “Democrats are wrong,” but “Democrats are not like you.” The charge is designed to make disagreement feel like social insult.

The intent is to peel off marginal voters who may accept Democratic economic ideas in the abstract but distrust the cultural ecosystem they associate with the party: universities, coastal media, nonprofit bureaucracy, tech, and professional-managerial norms. “Elitist” compresses a messy set of resentments into one moral accusation. It suggests condescension, gatekeeping, and a politics of credentials - a party that talks about “equity” while sounding like it’s grading your language and your choices.

The subtext is also defensive. Republicans have long been the party most aligned with wealth and corporate power; “elitist” is a clever decoy that swaps material hierarchy for cultural hierarchy. It implies that the real divide isn’t who has money or influence, but who gets to define what counts as “normal,” “respectable,” or “informed.” That’s how you can attack Democrats as elites even while championing tax cuts for the very rich: the target is status, not balance sheets.

Context matters: this line lands in an era of sorting, where education correlates with party, and where Democratic gains among college-educated voters make the brand vulnerable. Gillespie is naming that vulnerability and trying to turn it into a permanent stereotype: Democrats as scolding, managerial, out of touch - the party of “experts” who don’t listen.