A LONG OVERDUE COLLAPSE OF THE TECHNOCRATIC VISION?

Seventeen years ago, I was pessimistic about emergence getting a foothold in politics.

The technocratic vision ... is it indeed passing from the scene, or will there be new generations of politicians and academicians to restore it? And yes, there is a generational dimension to it. Grover Norquist may have made Andrew Sullivan angry by calling the current crop of elders "anti-American" and made too obvious a reference to the maxim, "where there is death, there is hope." Mr. Norquist erred, however, in pinning the blame on the G.I. era cohort. The real Destructive Generation comprises those individuals who remembered World War II and Korea, but who were too young to be called up for those wars, and too old for Vietnam, and who decided on the basis of the New Deal and the World War that Something Had To Be Done. And yes, that Destructive Generation has for too long called the shots in the universities, the international institutions, and the mainstream press.

And, apparently, that Destructive Generation lasted long enough to still be in Positions of Authority when the Wuhan coronavirus got loose.  Michael Lind sees in their continued hold over the levers of power a clash of two models of governance.

The same four-part early progressive template tends to be applied by today’s progressives to a host of unrelated issues: delegation of power to technocrats insulated from the public; top-down, comprehensive plans; invention or exaggeration of emergencies to justify radical reforms; and justification of censorship in terms of a state of emergency.

You have seen those four elements, dear reader, in "trust the science;" in Official Washington grousing about the lack of "a plan" (meaning one hashed out on the Sunday shows and implemented by Executive Order); in the continued fear-mongering about people going to the beach or throwing a Frisbee around; and in the scolding of "mask deniers" or "corona deniers."  By all means read the entire article for elaboration.  I highlight one passage. "[The comprehensive lockdowns] merely reflected the nonrational preference of technocratic progressive political culture for more stringent and comprehensive government policies, rather than more limited and selective ones that still would have protected those members of society who were in fact at the greatest risk—namely, people over 65, and those with preexisting conditions that depressed their immune systems."

The task, dear reader, is for the people who have been hard done by under the past year of technocratic excess, to say NO.

[S]ooner or later there will be another crisis, and the dominant culture of technocratic progressivism and its adherents will insist it can only be addressed by expert-led, top-down, centralized government allocation of resources or jobs. Once again, whatever the new problem happens to be, we will be told that it is an emergency, that democratically elected officials must defer to the policy views of unelected academics or career civil servants, and that disagreement and debate threaten the survival of America and the personal safety of us all.

It is time to call attention to all the current policy failures, whether those are the antipoverty initiatives or inclusive education that teaches nothing or the corona shutdown theater.

Five years ago, I was pessimistic about a popular push-back against technocratic excess organizing within the Republican coalition.

That sounds like a formula for a Republican Party reduced to irrelevance, particularly at the national level, changing demographics or not.  There's much to appeal to the remaining yeomanry, whether as farmers, small business owners, practitioners of the skilled trades, but not much toward fostering the preservation, let alone the continued evolution, of the yeomanry.  Perhaps it's wishful thinking by Democrats.  But the future for Democrats also looks a lot like business as usual.

On the other hand, primarily Democrat lockdowns have slammed the yeomanry, and primarily Democratic pandering to the woke sentiments of the gentry in their high-rise condos or college towns is rendering the cities where the primarily Democrat dependent base lives uninhabitable.

It's going to take somebody to offer a different vision, though, and that's where I'm skeptical about Republicans or Libertarians getting a message together.

Complex adaptive systems tend to do what they d**n well please.  Institutional evolution is about mutation, selection, and adaptation.  The best thing for some of the institutions might be that they go away.  I'll give Mr Lind the final word.  "And though it’s impossible to know exactly how it will end, one thing is clear: In 2016, the old political system is crumbling, and a new American political order is being born."

What that is going to look like by 2022 or 2024 still isn't clear.