They certainly used to be, and are desperately clinging to the sections of the culture they're still very much in charge of. Their control over Pop culture has degraded steadily over the last 60 years, so I think the reason why so many of them are behaving badly today is they can see the writing on the wall. Ironically, the tighter they try to hold on, the more likely they are to bring about that end much faster than if they'd let it happen naturally.

Their control of American culture is coming to its inevitable end (as all things end) and some of them have the attitude that if they can't control it, no one can, so they'll burn it all to the ground instead.