Edited sentence: It can be considered both a standard populist maneuver and as allowing ideas to be dismissed by association with a pejorative 'class' of people.It is quite evident then, that there is little that is new in the phenomenon of right wing political figures and polemicists invoking the existence of a 'chattering elite'.More dangerously, such a perspective potentially undermines a principled commitment to free speech.This takes the place of engaging with the content of the ideas themselves