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In the egalitarian society that the United States has always been - no aristocracy, peerage, titles, etc. - people have had to find other ways besides station at birth to distinguish themselves from mere ordinary citizens. Thus the birth, strength and longevity of snobbery, the effort to shore up one's own sense of importance and to make others feel their insignificance. How wonderfully ironic and humorous that snobbery thrives where society is most open, and does particularly well under democracy.
In Snobbery: The American Version (2002), an enjoyable history of the phenomena, author Joseph Epstein quotes sociologist Robert Nisbet: "A degree of proximity is required between two classes to make possible envy of the upper by the lower. This is why envy proliferates during periods or in societies where equality has come to dominate other values."
But...