Beware of Technocrats ‘Restoring’ Democracy

The Deep State has a poor record from managing China’s rise to COVID-19, but Democrats want to grant these unelected bureaucrats even more power.

Stacey Abrams, the sore loser of the Georgia gubernatorial election, wrote an essay for the Council on Foreign Relations journal Foreign Affairs. It covered all the elitist tropes—exploiting the COVID-19 Coronavirus Pandemic for partisan political gain. Abrams talks about restoring democracy, but the real aim is to restore the power of Technocratic experts. It would be comical if not deadly serious to the future of the Republic.

“Xenophobia and populism have been on the rise, and faith in democratic ideals has declined,” she writes. One should eschew xenophobia, properly defined, but what is so wrong with populism? Populism is a natural response to the concentration of power among political elites. And that’s the real problem. Abrams and her progressive cohorts have with contemporary politics—it threatens the technocratic elite. Or Deep State if you prefer.

For example, Abrams bemoans the decline of trust in experts. She writes, “Our present national leadership has instead fumbled the defense at home, embracing half-truths and rejecting expertise, and adopted a dangerous go-it-alone approach abroad.”

Notice that subtle crime—rejecting the experts.

You know, the experts who allowed China to rise. Not only allowed, but actively aided.

The experts who said we shouldn’t close the borders as the virus ravaged the globe.

The experts who shuttered the nation without a second thought to the economic disruptions that inevitably would follow.

Those experts.

No thanks.

I’d pick populism.

Progressives love to talk about democracy and democratic norms, but then refuse to do the basics of such—like concede lost elections.

Speaking of Abrams, to borrow from Juvenal—Democracy is much praised, yet starves.

Another cliché exploited by Abrams is of the pounce variety—as in conservatives pounce. She writes, “Authoritarians, such as Hungary’s Viktor Orban, have already seized on the moment to strengthen their positions and marginalize civil society, opposition movements, and activists.”

Orban, the World’s Most Powerful Calvinist, is a popular target for leftists. Why? Oh, because he is everything they hate: He’s a Christian. He believes in nationalism. And worst of all, he believes in limiting immigration. To the Left, those are heresies.

European Elites along with American Elites fail to understand the rise of Orban because they fail to appreciate the cultural-historical context. Hungary fought against outside invaders for hundreds of years—from Ottoman Turks to Communists. A belief that Hungary is special and deserves defending is nothing unusual among states; however, it upsets the technocrats from Brussels to Berlin.

Technocrats have visions and aspirations above the state. Their supranational dreams of the future approach the messianic conceptions of religion or at least communism.

Technocrats perceive themselves as the experts. They believe they know best. However, experts are only useful if their models, predictions and policy advice coincide with reality.

While past performance is not an indicator of the future—it is a prologue.

Fortunately, in a democracy the people can judge the Technocrats.

And whether we base that judgment on China or battling COVID-19, the evidence speaks for itself—the experts “are weighed in the balances, and found wanting.”

Before seeking even more power of the lives of ordinary Americans, get something right for once.

Until then, expect even more populist movements in the West.