> Who is saying this, and what is their point of reference?

That's an interesting question. The people who most commonly say this are not WASPs and probably were a rival of the WASPs at the time WASPs ran the country. My personal view of this is that prior to Kennedy, the WASPs were more insular and more elitist and actively discriminated. This is based on reading various things. I will give some examples. The Ivies probably all had a Jew quota. We know Harvard certainly did and from what I remember they instituted it in the 1920s when the Jewish population of the school was as high as 25% at that time. I believe I saw recently that even Stanford admitted to having one as recently as the 50s. In fact, Leland Stanford had made some derogatory comments about the Chinese in his constituency which is not so WASPy now. I know also that you find a number of powerful WASPs during the time of WWII were neutral or even slightly in favor of Hitler but not all of them maybe not even most but some definitely were. There is also a history of "white shoe" law firms that were made up of all WASPs that did not allow Jews in. I think books like the Great Gatsby kind of comment on them as well.

It's not surprising to me that two different members of the Roosevelt family were presidents. WASPs also implemented anti-miscegenation laws. As well, the immigration system allegedly preferred white protestants over others. This motivated the 1965 immigration Act (look at background of who sponsored it, I think this is significant in that time)

Kennedy was the first Irish and Catholic president. Post Kennedy I think what you are talking about is how they are now. I am not trying to argue they are evil, much less so relatively speaking. What I am trying to say is kind of nuanced.

I think very implicitly, they are kind of the group everyone thinks of when we think of elitism in the US right? You usually find institutions they founded apologizing for things WASPs did ages ago. Law suits at elite schools seem to imply that admissions policies are displaying nepotism of old family scion WASPs who are undeserving into the schools at the expense of others. You see movies where the antagonists are WASPy elites like in Meet the Parents or Scent of a Woman.

The bizarre thing about it is that more and more stories are coming out of Asians with super rich families who gave large donations to the schools and their children are being accepted in spite of the lawsuits and the public apologies for the previous nepotism and quotas. Even situations like with Jared Kushner's father who made a large donation just before Jared was accepted at Harvard. But there are disproportionately high numbers of Jews and Asians in the schools and this is said to be a result of hard work and not nepotism. One or two stories do not prove anything of course but likewise I would not say that everything WASPs did was undeserved.

This isn't to say that there aren't undeserving WASPs in high positions or very talented minorities but no one is perfect. What I am saying is that I see a setup here where elitism, discrimination, and nepotism were shunned when done by one group but humans being humans, the new elite who surpassed the old does the same things. I am not very optimistic about it either. I predict things will become very tribal.