It's worse because 1) even with the "best and brightest" in charge, we've had one disaster after another and 2) the "meritocracy" we have is horribly broken on

It's worse because 1) even with the "best and brightest" in charge, we've had one disaster after another and 2) the "meritocracy" we have is horribly broken on its own terms. Making the meritocracy we imagine should exist would require fairly radical reforms in terms of taxes, redistribution, college funding and regulation, youth economic and educational support, and a whole host of other interventions that supporters of the present establishment find anywhere from distasteful to anathema. "In public life, our pillar institutions and the elites who run them play the mechanic’s role. They are charged with the task of diagnosing and fixing problems in governance, the market, and society. And what we want from authorities, whether they are mechanics, money managers, or senators, is that they be competent—smart, informed, able—and that they not use their authority to pursue a hidden agenda or personal gain. We now operate in a world in which we can assume neither competence nor good faith from the authorities, and the consequences of this simple, devastating realization is the defining feature of American life at the end of this low, dishonest decade. Elite failure and the distrust it has spawned is the most powerful and least understood aspect of current politics and society." "..what we’ve seen time and time again is that the two aren’t so neatly separated. If you don’t concern yourself at all with equality of outcomes, you will, over time, produce a system with horrendous inequality of opportunity. This is the paradox of meritocracy: It can only truly come to flower in a society that starts out with a relatively high degree of equality. So if you want meritocracy, work for equality. Because it is only in a society which values equality of actual outcomes, one that promotes the commonweal and social solidarity, that equal opportunity and earned mobility can flourish." - Chris Hayes, Twilight of the Elites There's a good reason social mobility in places like Denmark is so high compared to the US; they do meritocracy better.