America is a country divided. Trust in the government and public institutions has been falling for decades. Alongside the decrease in trust is a sharp increase in political polarization. Both of these factors lead many Americans to want to have as little to do as possible with politics. Instead of putting their faith in the government, many people seek alternative institutions like private companies. According to a report by Morning Consult, the second most trusted institution in America is Amazon, with 39 percent of respondents saying they trust it “a lot” to do the right thing, while the U.S. government sits at a measly 7 percent. Even within the federal government, private companies have begun playing a bigger role in fulfilling the requests of the people. 

Since 2015, federal contract spending on private companies increased by 34 percent. These trends are indicative of the fact that many Americans feel that democratic politics is inefficient, ineffective, and debilitatingly partisan. And they hint that Americans have grown tired of our republican government’s inefficiencies and are looking for a change in how our government works. These subtle shifts in trust and power from public institutions to private ones are reminiscent of a different brand of government than was conceived during America’s founding: a technocracy. 

A technocracy is a government in which decisions are made by scientific or technical experts, rather than by representatives of the average citizen. Technocratic systems have wormed their way into American politics and have also gained some popularity due to diminishing trust in politicians and the attractiveness of authority based on intelligence, rather than politics. But, despite its emphasis on qualifications and education, a technocracy isn’t a more effective way to govern a country compared to a representative democracy. Technocracies also lead to the decay of many of the democratic ideals that made America the longest-lasting democracy in the world, like diverse representation and equality. Thus, a technocracy can’t solve the declining trust and political polarization that plagues our politics today. This transition away from our democratic roots is not new, but the pressures of historically low levels of trust and high levels of polarization give us an ultimatum: fix our democracy, or lose it forever.

According to a poll by Pew Research in 2017, nearly half of millennials in the United States would rather have a government ruled by experts than by elected officials. Technocratic ideas like these have gained significant traction in recent years, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a counter to the ubiquity of misinformation and “fake news” in 2020, the slogan “Follow the Science” was adopted to combat misinformation spread by unscientific and “fake” news, and to pin blame on politicians. Meanwhile, scientific experts, such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, enjoyed higher approval ratings than both former President Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence. In the eyes of many, the United States’ failure to contain the pandemic could have been avoided if only we had “listened to the scientists.” 

This line of thinking is attractive because we are a generation that has fetishized and worshipped education as a path to success. Generation Z is on track to become the best-educated generation yet. College attendance has soared even as admission rates have become incredibly competitive, and a degree from a prestigious university has become a necessity for those on the fast track to success. To those who have grown up being fed the idea that education is the gate to the halls of power, it makes perfect sense that those who should lead the country must have gone to an Ivy League school and have an advanced degree.

 This idea even extends beyond deferring policy-making to unelected experts like Dr. Fauci; credentialism has embedded itself in our elected officials themselves. While in office, Trump was obsessed with his IQ and how it compared with those of his opponents and critics. Joe Biden’s staff and appointments are replete with Ivy League credentials and Washington prestige. Today, there isn’t a single U.S. Senator without a college degree, while as recently as the 1960s, a quarter of U.S. Senators were only high school graduates. Although America has always been run by some class of elites, we have increasingly shifted power in our government and our lives to the extremely educated—a qualification that doesn’t necessarily lead to strong leadership or civic virtue. The most fitting word for a government like this isn’t democracy; it’s technocracy.

Submitting ourselves to the technocracy might not be a huge concern if it were actually the most effective way to organize a government, but history suggests otherwise. For example, President John F. Kennedy’s elite administration of academics and intellectuals crafted the Vietnam War, one of the greatest failures and embarrassments of U.S. foreign policy. As David Halberstam writes in his book The Best and the Brightest, Kennedy’s star-studded team insisted on brilliant policies that defied common sense, even against the advice of officials at the Department of State. The role of overconfidence and pretension in the mistakes of that era can’t be understated. More recently, Barack Obama assembled during the peak of the 2008 financial crisis a glittering economic team. It refused to hold accountable the companies and financial institutions that had not only dug their own graves, but the graves of ordinary Americans as well. Instead, the Treasury bailed out banks who then used the money to hand out bonuses to their executives. Wall Street itself is yet another institution filled with the best and the brightest, yet their hubris and shortsightedness almost single-handedly caused the greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression.

Even when the technocracy doesn’t outright fail, it cannot remedy the lack of trust we have in our leaders. In fact, the increasing reliance on experts and the elite has led to extreme political backlash. Political philosopher Michael Sandel argues in his book The Tyranny of Merit that one of the main factors that led to Trump’s election was retaliation over the country’s technocratic bent that seemed to leave so many Americans behind. Less than half of Americans have college degrees. To them, Washington is filled with elites who know nothing of life beyond the country clubs and careerists who demean and disrespect the less rich and less educated. During his last few days in office, President Obama criticized the Democratic party’s image, bemoaning that “Democrats are characterized as coastal, liberal, latte-sipping, you know, politically correct, out-of-touch folks.” A government that can be described like that, no matter how qualified and experienced, cannot claim to govern a nation of such diverse people. The rich and educated ruling over the poor and unschooled is not a representative democracy.

When a technocracy justifies only letting certain types of people rise to power, the prerequisites aren’t just limited to education level. A technocracy’s undemocratic authority can justify discriminating against any group of people, and when certain groups are cut out of the process, silenced, or mistreated, the harms to their trust in the government can be significant and lasting. For instance, some may remember reports of hesitancy in some people in the Black and Latino community to take the COVID-19 vaccine when distribution began. Much of that distrust can be traced back more than half a century ago to human experimentation led by scientists and medical professionals in otherwise democratic governments. In the United States, many African-Americans still recall the Tuskegee Syphilis Study conducted between 1932 and 1972 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In the study, 399 African-American men with latent syphilis were intentionally denied treatment for the disease and told that they were receiving free healthcare from the government, while instead being studied for the effect of the disease on their body. During the 40 year experiment, 128 of the participants died of syphilis and its complications. Similarly, many Hispanic Americans remember the Puerto Rican contraceptive trials in the 1950s, where low-income women were given experimental birth control pills without being told the dangerous side effects, leading to at least three deaths. Technocracies have a history of justifying discrimination against those who are a minority, poor, or uneducated, while simultaneously being shielded from the accountability an elected government must face. Those who are unfortunately left out of the technocracy have no choice but to yield to the chosen ones, whether they are chosen by race, gender, education, or any other arbitrary classifier. The way to prevent future repeats of these atrocities isn’t to hire better scientists; it’s to include diverse voices and representation in every level of government—something only a democracy can do.

If a technocracy isn’t the answer to our political problems, then what can we do to save our current system? Harvard Professor Danielle Allen suggests a cure: unity. It is a word thrown around so ubiquitously that it has transcended platitude and become an annoyance, even unseemly. But a democracy cannot function without unity. Division locks Congress in place and breeds politicians who thrive on conflict, not progress. Even worse, division turns the average person off from democratic politics. Some people may turn to unelected experts instead of elected officials, and others may distance themselves from politics entirely. Both lead to a technocracy where the elite few rule over a citizenry that is neither knowledgeable nor engaged in the democratic process. Democracies are especially vulnerable to dissonance because it requires the source of its power—the people—to be in lockstep in order to solve any problem.

The challenges that our government struggles with today, like poor governance and lack of diversity, can only be solved by democratic methods that demand unity. Moving towards a technocracy cannot solve, and in fact exacerbates, these problems. Rebuilding trust in our government is the way to stop the decline towards a technocracy. However, trust cannot be imposed directly; it only comes after a government can represent and serve the people effectively. Unity is therefore essential for rebuilding trust. A government that is actually functional, harmonious, and less fiery attracts positive attention back towards our politics and away from the private sector. Unity can not only solve our trust problem, but it also paves the way for strengthening our democracy.

Unity in our current environment is hard to come by. News sites and social media platforms feed on the extreme, propagating and normalizing fringe opinions and movements, further hindering our ability to see the other side as rational, much less reasonable. And while Americans overwhelmingly agree that we have become incredibly polarized, we seem to have little appetite for actually reaching across aisles and building bridges. Some may think unity isn’t all that important, while others may find the idea of working together with people they don’t like appalling. But however difficult it may be at times, unity should be at the top of the docket. Once it is, we can focus on solutions. Allen argues that increasing political participation is the most important and effective way to reduce polarization. Getting more people engaged in the political process is fundamental to a strong democracy. Along the way, respect and empathy should be guiding principles. There will always be disagreements, but they should be seen as opportunities to learn from each other rather than conflicts. Unity means spreading the idea to as many people as possible that politics can be healthy, and healthy politics can solve problems.

All of this relies on us understanding the root of the problem. Unity fosters participation and is a prerequisite for restoring trust in our elected leaders. Division degrades the very foundation of democracy. Reprioritizing unity and trust is the first step to restoring ours.

Andrew Li is a guest contributor and a second-year SEAS student at U.Va.