Yeah but you've got to appreciate the irony in America. America has a very selective elite who have a very narrow definition of what that elite is (ivy-league, "entrepreneurial", rich, democrat, ...) and is regularly accused of having -very- little tolerance for anyone outside of their core group ... I wouldn't say that's true for the whole group, but there's a significant portion of them that certainly do this.
And this elite is blasting everyone else for not having an equal system. Seriously. Of course the French aristocrats did the same. I'm sure many elites, present and past, liked to claim their superior status was due to "inherent" but ill-defined characteristics : nobility, chivalry, scientific accomplishment (like the Roman elites did) ... are all words that come to mind. None of them held up their own ideals. The majority of French noblemen were cruel drunks. So were most Roman elites if Cicero's anything to go by. I'm not saying America's Ivy-league elite is a bunch of drunks, but they certainly don't satisfy their own rules : they are not social (in the political sense), they do not advance equality (quite the opposite), and most importantly : it is not the case that they're the self-selected best and brightest. Like all other elites, the reason they get in power is that they are in power and get pulled in by their buddies (which, granted, beats why French noblemen were elite : because great-great-great-great-great-granddad managed to get a command position in the king's army. The first generation of French noblemen were probably very capable people who genuinely meant well).
The only distinguishing characteristic that matters in members of America's elite is friendships and other associations with other members of the elite. As for "best and brightest", you could say that there's a (low) lower bar that they need to hit. That's it.
