It’s true that the common usage of “elitist” is devoid of denotative meaning and overburdened with gelatinous connotations. The suggestion that we make a distinction between elites and elitist could be useful if we are able to agree on a defnition.

The “elitists” achieve a level of sheer weirdness unmatched by even the most degraded historical elite. They are arrogant egalitarians, arrogant, self-indulgently guilt-ridden, uniformly diversitarian, Castrophiliac civil libertarians.

And that only touches on their salient characteristics.