Why Many Elites Denigrate the Very Values That Made Them Successful | Rob Henderson

American Thought Leaders · Jul 3, 2026 · 39m

Rob Henderson grew up in poverty in Los Angeles moving from foster home to foster home, seeing addiction, instability, and family breakdown all around him. He joined the U.S. Air Force at 17, entered Yale University at 25 with help from the GI Bill, and completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge. He climbed “every rung on the American class ladder,” as he describes it.

But at Yale and other elite universities, he saw the spread of radical ideas—abolish the police, empty prisons, dismantle marriage, decriminalize all drugs—ideas that he understood would be devastating to the communities…