2.

The technocratic manager, being the face of economic monopoly, is a useful target for those who aspire to administrate on behalf of that monopoly. Even the most undereducated American understands that government does not represent his or her interests, and subsequently is receptive to explanations which explain why this is so. Of course, nobody interested in attaining power over others is going to attack the principle of monopoly on which their bid for "leadership" is premised: the problem, therefore, is not how power is distributed, but instead the "quality" of whatever minority wields it.

George Bush enjoyed eight years in office because the Republican Party successfully advanced the argument that the technical administrators of the nation -- the media elites, the academic community, the leaders in government and in the corporate class -- suffered from an affliction of "liberal values" which, by definition, compromises one's moral legitimacy. These people may be well-educated and knowledgeable, but they lack the kind of basic decency that can be found most of the American electorate; so the solution is to elect leaders who are more "like" the average person -- someone like George Bush, for example; and now, Sarah Palin.

Conversely, much of the reason why Barack Obama won this time around owes to the fact that the Democrats had eight years of anti-intellectualism on which to anchor the reintroduction of the technocratic ideal -- that "having smart people run things isn't such a bad idea, after all." In ways that mirror the right-wing attack on "liberalism," liberals predictably attacked the Sarah Palin crowd as intrinsically deficient by the measure of liberal standards; and this time around, the argument proved persuasive -- namely after Bush's two-term catastrophe.