Unfortunately, it's nothing new. America's mainstream historical ethos derives from a deep anti-intellectual sentiment of an expat merchant class who frowned upon academia and the Old World. The Puritans at least left a positive legacy in Boston, despite generally shunning ideas and people who dared to think differently. The American frontier acted as a risk tolerance filter of peoples from around the world to emigrate. There are systemic problems of economic and policing inequality, and under-socialism in the US.

How does America receive those from distant lands now?

What future does America have without prestigious, selective academic institutions except a brain drain exodus?