From Sandel's Just Deserts at Powerline:
He (Sandel) fails to consider that substantial numbers of Americans are proud of their local way of life, have no yearning to live in Manhattan or Silicon Valley, and mostly want progressive elites to mind their own business. And for the most part he ignores the abundant evidence that the anger and the resentment of the people who live beyond urban centers and the wealthy suburbs that surround them stem from the political class’s faulty conduct: Many members of communities in red America believe that elites have recklessly opened the southern border and suspended immigration laws; promiscuously spent taxpayer dollars with little concern for the long-term effects on the nation’s fiscal health; tarnished America’s good name by bungling wars and diplomacy; converted much of the mainstream media into a propaganda arm of the Democratic Party; mobilized powerful government agencies—the IRS, the FBI, and the Department of Justice—against the conservative grassroots as well as its democratically chosen standard-bearer; and, not least, transformed the educational system—from kindergarten through graduate and professional education—into an assembly line for the reproduction of leftist ideology.
Despite the many causes for concern, including a few vague doubts that he himself raises, Sandel rejects the possibility that the primary problem with meritocracy in America is the failure of many members of our intellectual and political elites to perform their jobs well. Instead, he sets out to discredit the very idea that human beings deserve the fruits of their labor.
