The derogatory use of “elites” became popular with conservative Republicans, who used it to disparage “activist” judges, in the mid-1980s. It was a popular epithet of Robert Bork, who somehow was never able to comprehend that he – first a law professor, then a Federal judge, then a think tanker – was always one of the elite himself.

(And I say this as a conservative Republican myself.)

But the origins of the term in this context was, I submit, George Wallace and his famous disdain for “pointy-headed intellectuals”.