[jlangenauer]

I see it less as an aristocracy (most of which are sidelined and/or laughed at), but instead a highly-evolved technocracy which runs Europe according to their ideal of what the citizens should want, and with a certain fear of democracy based on the occasionally vile things that European democracies have done. There is a definite fear of the people, and a elite consensus that they must be managed for their own good.