Here’s what they don’t have, most of them, any more than you do: Original or

penetrating insights into the large political currents buffeting the United States and
the world.
Just what are these elites talking and scheming about here in the Alps at the annual
convening of the World Economic Forum? It turns out they are talking (too crowded
to actually scheme) about the same things you were in that fidgety conversation with
some neighbor at your kid’s birthday party; with a colleague on the elevator; or with
an old friend who evidently watches a lot of cable at your high school reunion.

Oh, man, can you believe this choice? A weak current president or a volatile and
potentially convicted felon ex-president.The second way to think about it is that
insights or alleged insights into the deeper meaning or future course of current
events have been radically democratized over recent generations. Fifty-four years
ago, when the World Economic Forum’s genius convener started these gatherings, it
was probably true that elites learned things at Davos or meetings of the Trilateral
Commission or the Bilderberg Group that most people couldn’t easily learn for
themselves. This hold was weakened by cable news and demolished by social media.

What’s more, even the wealthiest and most powerful people at Davos typically come
from familiar cultural soil. Like many well-educated, reasonably comfortable
professionals, they tend to view politics from a distinctly centrist perspective. In this
light, the cultural and ideological eruptions roiling the United States and much of the
world look mystifying and irrational. They believe there are sensible, technocratic
solutions to most problems and yearn for a politics that transcends partisanship and
tribalism. This instinct is as true for the local bank branch manager as it is for the
global banking CEO — they talk about current events in the same way.

The final point is that even the most highly credentialed people can be vexed by
modern life — even in their own areas of expertise. Every year at Davos, the Edelman
public affairs firm releases its annual “trust barometer,” at least in recent years,
invariably showing a decline in trust of institutions and elites. On the panel to
discuss the results was an expert on AI, Thomas Siebel, the CEO of the tech firm
C3.ai. One of his big concerns is about how too many young people are becoming
anxious and depressed because of too much time on social media. Also on the panel
was Srikant Datar, dean of the faculty at Harvard Business School. One of his big
concerns is how university intellectual culture is becoming too intolerant of opposing
views. Siebel and Datar, like other panelists (including Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the
former prime minister of Denmark), seemed like very smart, level-headed people. A
bit of a surprise, then, to learn they are concerned about the same subjects that might
get ventilated in a suburban patio party. And a bit of a letdown that they did not offer
very precise remedies.

That may be the real lesson of Davos: Everyone is winging it, experts and schlubs
alike, muddling through with at best fragmentary understandings of a fast-moving
world and its inscrutable future.