My sentence wasn't very clear. When I was talking about Trump and Sanders, I was referring only to the idolization of the rich. Both Trump and Sanders spoke out against the wealthy elite controlling politics. Trump even rejected partisan campaign financing until recently.
One of the biggest culture shocks I had when I first moved to the US was the near constant push of consumerism and celebration of consumption. I had never seen or experienced this before at such high levels and even 15 years or so later, I still cannot come to grips with it (although I am a bit more desensitized to it). It permeates every aspect of American life and is quite difficult to escape. Perhaps this is a bad cliche, but the average American's status here is very much defined by his or her ability to consume. Americans may sneer more at the 1%, but idolization of being rich has never decelerated.
The article is - sadly - a lie. There's an idealisation of productivity, which has somehow become correlated with IQ. (Even though in practice the relationship between IQ and productivity is subtle and context-dependent.)
Most of US culture has absolutely zero interest in clever people unless they're also making money and/or running a business. There is no situation where IQ and abstract intellectual output are valued purely for their own sake and not for their financial productivity - not even academia.
Which means the real problem is the way that "business" has become the de facto state religion - in the sense of being the ultimate moral arbiter of personal value and the one true absolute definition of how "good" people are recognised.
Hard work and money. Or money at least.
Trump's success is based on a weird identification - the belief that Trump represents the interests of the 99% because he's a non-intellectual plain speaker who says what he means and means what he says using language that everyone can understand.
That makes him "one of us" to many people, even though of course he's nothing of the sort.
