There's only so much crisis one can take, before the desire for anything vaguely normal, competent, and technocratic takes hold. I'm as anti-technocratic as one can probably get, but even I'm longing for utterly boring competence right now
Perhaps, for the fundamental changes Bernie calls for (which I support in part because I'm an anti-technocrat), you need to have a population facing crisis—but not too much of it
In theory, rightwing populists could benefit from Corona: hunkering inward, fearing foreigners and travel, railing against globalization, but ultimately it's likely to remind voters that technocrats can be good
The demand for experts might approximate a bell curve: Very successful, equitable societies prefer technocrats, but formerly successful societies descending into chaos also prefer technocrats. Rightwing populism and anti-technocracy flourishes in the in-between
I'm no Hillary Clinton enthusiast, but Hillary as president right now would have been a dream
There's a certain luxury to railing against technocrats, and it's a luxury that I hope we, as a nation, can return to as soon as possible
