Power to the people

We all have merit.
That is the slogan I contributed to my union, Texas State Employees Union, for one of their yearly rallies a few years ago. This simple phrase is the crux of the divide in the US today. Maybe the world.
Mankind has been seeking for at least the last millennium to find and establish a meritocracy. In feudal times they tried genetics. The hope and belief was that extraordinary people would have extraordinary descendents, so royalty and nobility was inherited.
When that proved an error, the dream was equality, but either people didn't know how to ensure the practice, or were simply not determined enough, because instead wealth became the standard.
This is where we stand today.
IMO, one of the major divides, the fundamental differences that lead to the more commonly discussed, superficial differences, between the two parties is their attitude towards meritocracy.
First, let me say, I would be all for meritocracy if I thought it could ever be achieved in our emphatically imperfect species.
As I further see it, Republicans believe in meritocracy and Democrats agree with me. Republicans, at least the economic Republicans and probably many in the other wings of the party, believe that wealth IS evidence of superiority and a valid basis for the decision power over society.
Democrats believe that it is not possible to select some group of people with sufficient merit to have that power and therefore we must extend the decision power to ALL the people.
In just the past month, I have heard a Republican verbally quake at that idea. The attitude of the founding fathers that rights must be restricted to property owners lives in these people.
It's time to get beyond that 18th century attitude.