Beware of Technocrats on the Left and Right

Elite-educated, over-confident, unelected officials shouldn't replace republican governing--DOGE or otherwise.

In this paid-subscribers post

• Two species of one technocracy genus

• Governing is human; traditional American governing processes recognize that

• DOGE embodies our current inability to govern through normal channels

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I had an essay run yesterday in the great online magazine Fusion.

I discussed “DOGE,” the Trump administration initiative being led by Elon Musk (and until recently Vivek Ramaswamy).

The point of the essay is that, although technocracy is generally associated with the political left, elements of the right often want to turn things over to smart, energetic business leaders who promise to make tough decisions and whip government into shape by working outside of normal governing channels. It’s just a different species of the technocracy genus.

Indeed, as I point out in my essay, Musk and Ramaswamy kicked off DOGE with an op-ed in the WSJ, in which they complain about brash, unelected individuals influencing trillions of dollars and hundreds of millions of lives. It never seemed to occur to the two corporate titans that they too are brash, unelected individuals hoping to influence trillions of dollars and hundreds of millions of lives…