by expanding their admissions to include women and minorities while keeping standards high.
No. Again, no. There are very distinctly two sets of standards, one lower than the other, and it shouldn't require much elaboration as to why that causes legitimate resentment. or why it deviates from any real notion of a meritocracy.
The result of that expansion is now with us: Barack Obama
Umm, no. It's fairly clear to every non-brainwashed observer that BHO's skin color was a huge part of the elite's attraction to him. That behavior on the part of the (noun) elite, is distinctly not compatible with the maintenance of an (adjective) elite class.
Despite pushing aside the old WASP establishment—not a single WASP remains on the Supreme Court—these modern meritocrats are clearly not admired, or at least not for their upward mobility, by many Americans
Sigh. Replace "WASP" with anything and I mean any other term, "Black", "Jewish", "Italian" anything in the world and ask yourself, "Why would the blacks/Jews/Italians not admire the other groups pushing them out of power?" Why would that be reasonable?
The stupidity is almost overpowering.