Trends in American Political Cuture

Speculation:  There has been a shift away from favoring constitutional (legal) foundations of government towards a "Confucian" view (and maybe mix in a little Plato, Rousseau, Yeats and Rawls). The idea is best described as Technocratic but at the same time it is, emotionally anyway, Aristocratic.  It is the idea that the "best" people will make the "correct" decisions if we could but give them the power.