You could make that less parochial by rephrasing to something like:
There is a worldwide rise in nationalism and populism and corresponding rejection of globalism, leading to worse leaders. This rise is poorly understood by elites, which lessens hope that this trend is going away soon.
The incentives for elites seem to prevent understanding. By (being known as) understanding non-elites, you lose your elite status.
A king is allowed to express certain amount of empathy with starving peasants, and he still remains king. For political elites, expressing empathy with their opponents would probably be a career suicide. (Instead, the proper form of “understanding” your opponents is to attack their strawmen.)
You could make that less parochial by rephrasing to something like:
There is a worldwide rise in nationalism and populism and corresponding rejection of globalism, leading to worse leaders. This rise is poorly understood by elites, which lessens hope that this trend is going away soon.
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The incentives for elites seem to prevent understanding. By (being known as) understanding non-elites, you lose your elite status.
A king is allowed to express certain amount of empathy with starving peasants, and he still remains king. For political elites, expressing empathy with their opponents would probably be a career suicide. (Instead, the proper form of “understanding” your opponents is to attack their strawmen.)