My point is "they don't participate if it's inherently smearing". They are careful about their public selves.

This means that they must believe it has become defendable.

I understood you very well. But maybe we are not talking about the same "elites" because I have no idea how you get the idea. They didn't care about the connotation back then. Why should the negativity of it be relevant today?

I was thinking of financial elites btw.