Is appreciating and championing productivity, integrity, professionalism, worth and value a negative? If it's elitist to expect the most out of people, to promote and support quality worksmanship, to enjoy getting things done and to laud the people who can do things cleanly and perfectly with no problems, then I wish we had more of them around.
Some Protestant fundamentalists and Republican Party zealots use the term "elitist" as a derogatory insult, but truth be known being an elitist is a good thing. It means you request the best in yourself and the best in others. That you don't accept a shoddy effort, sloven inefficiency, or drab incompetence. That you fight the movement to water down your fun, and that you refuse to accept an existence that bores the hell out of you. The elitists of this world are the tent poles of progress, propping up achievement and pushing the arts, sciences, culture, music, and the human condition to forever best itself in all avenues of creativity. Without elitists, the tent falls, flattened into the ground of ridiculously tepid, safe, boring mediocrity. It's the elitists who express early desires for higher standards in every capacity of life. It's the elitists who put every interesting genre of music you've ever heard on the map, who've established every untouchable sports record, who write books that continue to sell long after the author is dead, who've put men on the moon, cars on the roads, and your computer in front of you. Without elitists, everything that's wrong and inane with life will run unchecked. Without elitists, we, as an interesting species, are truly screwed.
Let the Protestant fundamentalists call us elitist all they want, and if that's the case, then so be it. But let me honestly ask you: What's so wrong with being elitist?
They are speaking of AN elite, the present day Establishment, once Protestant and now agnostic.