I can't actually read anything written in the newyorker house style. It's the carefully constructed multi-component sentences, the endless baroque digressions, sorry I just can't take it anymore, for fks sake can't they just get to the point :)
Everything that is said could be said just as well and more succinctly in a more prosaic manner.
It is a choice to focus more on the form of the content than on the content itself. They could still target intellectuals without having to throw in pointless analogy and other bloated verbiage. It just feels like it's faux-intellectual.