Insight on Public Policy

This guy often has excellent points buried in his essays.  This particular one has a lot more 'local' implications than you think.

...Public policy is about trade-offs. In a liberal democracy, the people, through their representatives, wrangle over these trade-offs and arrive at a compromise that satisfies most people well enough to keep the peace. Logic is not what drives these deliberations. Tradition, culture and vested interests play the leading roles. Smart people know how to create a better health system, for example, but getting everyone to go along with it is impossible.....

Think about that.

OK, now here's the reason he brought it up.

...Technocracy has no mechanism for this. It is the sterile decision making of bureaucrats insulated from the consequences of their policy choices. The managerial state has the added defect of bestowing a form of tenure on its members. No matter how much they screw up, they never lose anything but some face....

...Inevitably, people begin to look at the managerial class the same way the commoners looked at the aristocracy in 18th century France. The average citizen of a Western country feels as if they are ruled by strangers. The result is the rising tide of populism we are seeing, which is nothing like the top-down variant a century ago. The Italian vote was not about nationalism, It was about rejecting rule by strangers. It is why Trump will be the next president and Britain will leave Europe....

Understand that "technocracy" is the result of Wilsonian "expert-ism" which is now rampant in D.C. and--for that matter--the States and even municipalities.  It is CERTAINLY rampant in the education establishment, right down to the local school districts--which are given over to the Technocrats by the local 'board' which 'has control.'

Either 'tradition, culture, and vested interests' win at the ballot box, or they win by alternative means, which is usually brass, lead, and powder.  The first is preferable, ne c'est pas?