In democracies, meritocracy will always be on the defensive. Its legitimacy will always depend on its performance—its ability to provide physical security and broadly shared prosperity, as well as to conduct foreign policy and armed conflict successfully. When it fails to deliver, all bets are off. This is what has happened throughout the West.Our meritocracy has dropped the ball on physical security, shared prosperity, and winning wars. As Galston notes, it also identifies more with its peers abroad than with its fellow citizens at home.
It is the meritocracy's bad luck that their fellow citizens have noticed their failures. We fellow citizens are not amused, hence Trump and Sanders.
