And like all elites, they believe that they not only rule because they can, but because they should. Even many quite left-wing folks do not fundamentally question the idea that the world should be run by highly verbal people who test well and turn their work in on time. They may think that machine operators should have more power and money in the workplace, and salesmen and accountants should have less. But if they think there’s anything wrong with the balance of power in the system we all live under, it is that clever mandarins do not have enough power to bend that system to their will. For the good of everyone else, of course. Not that they spend much time with everyone else, but they have excellent imaginations.

— Megan McArdle, America’s New Mandarins

I think that McArdle is right on, and that this is the most important political shift going on in our country today. Far more important, and probably far more damaging, than whatever is happening on the GOP v. Dem reality show.