What he’s describing is technocracy. It’s not a new idea, it’s literally how huge swathes of our government operate, without anyone knowing it because the roles are rarely politicized. One of the controversial themes in the last few years has been how much this administration has politicized seemingly professional and previously uncontroversial staffing to load up loyalists. There’s always been some cronyism in every kind of high profile appointment, but seeing purges in low level public health positions is ridiculous.

We so much expect professionals in these roles that it’s almost never discussed that their roles even exist. They don’t have high turnover and they’re almost never used for political football.

It’s not to say that that’s a panacea, people in comfortable professional roles don’t routinely shake things up. But making their job descriptions political isn’t the solution to that either.