In past decades, American surface transportation policy centered around questions like how much to spend, how much to distribute between roads and transit, and how much each state should get in return for its federal gas tax contribution. Today, surface transportation policy is taking place against the backdrop of multiple technology revolutions in autonomous vehicles and electric vehicles, with China potentially poised to dominate the latter—and possibly the former as well.

With increasing income inequality and social stratification remi­niscent of the Gilded Age, talk of an “establishment” has re­turned to our political discourse. As in the past, the word is typically used as a pejorative describing an incumbent power structure that needs to be overturned. Yet today’s sociopolitical regime is vastly different from the establishment that…