I Wonk, Therefore I Am: The Limits Of Republican-Bashing
...Our wonkocracy is not, in fact, just any wonkocracy. Simply contrast it for a moment with, say, China’s, and you will recognize that ours is a decidedly neoliberal one. Even copping to this qualifier, however, does little to diminish our wonkocrats’ claims to functional universality. It is not too much of an exaggeration to summarize their autobiography like this: their job is to determine what policies are best for us; nobody is better at their job than they are, as a class; and history strongly suggests that, on a long enough timeline, anyone who isn’t following the policies that are best for us will catch up to our standpoint eventually, unless their ignorance destroys them first....

...The logic of the neoliberal wonkocrat dictates that “government” is this accumulation of authority, this attribution of legitimacy, and the entitlement to implement policy that flows from it. That’s what governing means. Oppose that, and you oppose not just “an ideology” or “your partisan opponents” — you oppose governance itself. It’s a simple model, really: Be Krugtron the Invincible, follow Krugtron the Invincible, or get out of the way....

...Krugman and any other wonkocrats are just lying when they insist that the foundational issue is political bad faith of an “ideological” kind. No matter how real or important that issue is, it will never transcend the really fundamental claim animating and self-justifying the wonkocracy: that, whatever else is the case, they deserve the power to see their policies implemented...