The idea of “the wonk gap” is little more than a relabeling of what was “the reality-based community” in the early-’00s. Progressives comfort themselves with backpatting about how there are just so many more smart people on the left who care about data and empiricism, and that the perceived imbalance in this area is itself evidence of the correctness of progressivism.

If we define “wonk” as a title conferred by graduate degrees, government bureaucracy employment, or university tenure, then let’s give them this: there are more “wonks” on the left than on the right. These types of specialized knowledge are not the only knowledge worth having, however, and there are of course many policies throughout history advocated by a consensus of wonks that have turned out disastrously. It would also be strange, given America’s two-party system and individual value systems, if both ideological sides were equally hospitable to the type of wonkocracy that these progressives advocate.

The perception of the “wonk gap” has caused people like Paul Krugman to actually turn away from “study, empirical analysis, and informed debate.” The intertwining of the left-wing intelligentsia with the Democratic Party has compromised the ability of many of these writers to actually think critically and accept that their opposition is also motivated by a genuine desire to do good and backed up with empirical evidence. Krugman himself attests that he doesn’t read anything by anyone associated with conservatism.