Its second founding would be the 1830s. The results of the Civil War did lead to some centralizations, but not anywhere as much as we're taught they and did and more importantly the basic institutional designs and systemic-paradigm of the group of groups knowns as the jacksonians persisted in the NE, Mid West, and West persisted until after WW2 and didnt go away over night (in fact, we retain much of it, its just largely nullified)
When you write "That government must be truly representative of the people, in all their diversity of beliefs and interests."
Yes. this is true. And it requires, among other things, substantial legal/regulatory variability and policy variability, even down to the local level. We used to have it and theres no reason we cant today. China has actually had since the early 1980s (Xi and Co have been trying hard to undo this and centralize things, we’ll see if they succeed, pushback seems to be forming)
As late as the 1930s both the Democratic and Republican Parties were still decentralized, publicly accessible and internally contestable mass member party and the country it operated in was still a widely and deeply federated system with legal/regulatory variability, policy variability, local governments were still the biggest fiscal actors, the economy was still one structurally biased towards being one dominated by geographically dispersed and redundant diversified mid sized firms, banking/finance was still structurally locally anchored and relative to today quite pluralized, education was decentralized, etc.
This didnt end over night, there was a multidecadal transformation phase following WW2. And now we've reached, and have for decades at this point, a place where are relatively deeply centralized, standardized, and our governmental-corporate-financial institutional spaces are quite decision making exclusionary
We're not the first folks to consider this. A future President of the United States wrote and opined about the challenges of maintaining a healthy and equitable civil society and government in 1838. Lincoln's Lyceum Address feels downright prophetic in 2026.
(It's a remarkable document for its brevity, ambition, and use of history and language. I've been captivated by it since I first read it in 1980.)
Two parts of his speech and its underlying thoughts have particular importance: one, that the circumstances that led to the founding of the United States have changed, and as a result, new tools must be developed and used to ensure that government continues to serve the people. His answer is the development of a "political religion" that puts reasoned respect for the rule of law and the civil rights and liberties at the center of *everything* American.
The second is his warning against the ambitions of world-historical figures, the avarice and hubris they bring to nations, and the harm they cause to people everywhere. We can't say we weren't warned.
I think part of the problem with governance from the 1970s onward has been an abdication of the willingness to work on issues that require both structural and social changes, and the capitulation to people and organizations that want atavistic changes which would limit who participates in society and what rights and liberties apply to different groups of people. The Lyceum Address should be a reminder that it's our obligation to do that work, to both maintain and improve our government and the cultures and communities that support it.
Agreed. I was talking about the organization, which is the other big side of things. Culture and ethical alignments are very important but organizational design and forms is also very important. And, over the long run at least, worldviews, culture and ethical alignments can be effected by the design and forms of institutional spaces and the broader institutional topology that contains them, both formal-governmental ones and non governmental ones (e.g. business, academe, etc.) and eventually it can even be that worldviews, culture and ethical alignments eventually become increasingly downstream of organizational design and forms via the layout and designs of decision making processes (and who has serious access to those processes) of decision making related to culture, socialization processes, incentive structures, etc.
Great article. Only quibble is this line: "That government must be truly representative of the people, in all their diversity of beliefs and interests."
This sentiment may be fine at local/state levels of governance, but a federal government that has the purpose of serving the greater good of the country (needs of the people) cannot also serve the will of the people (wants of the people).
We are too large and diverse of a country to have full representation of everybody's interest vested in a single, centralized authority. A government of this nature that tries to serve everybody's interests will end up serving nobody and be in constant conflict.
Very good comment. The "will of the people" is actually a bit of a philosophical problem that future ISMA conferences will need to address directly. In a liberal democracy the majority has the right to decide policy, as well as to guide the broad historical trajectory of constitutional interpretation, so long as it abides by the constitution and safeguards minority and individual rights.
Problem is the general will does not exist in a ready-made form and, as we see daily, the people need to be far better informed and less subject to propaganda and partisan hostilities. Party systems in liberal democracies have altogether failed to produce either a coherent general will or authoritative notions of the common good and national interest.
Without clearer definitions of the general will, the common good, and the national interest, nations cannot make consistent policy decisions or plan for the future. So it's not surprising that we are tending toward dictatorship and autocracy in liberal democracies today. That's the only way to get much done under our current understanding of "constitutionalism," which almost entirely lacks a civic dimension.
Think about it: our system of government and constitutionalism is profoundly dependent on public opinion and yet we have no system for organizing or improving public opinion.... Besides political parties that are clearly toxic to the body politic.
Actually, no. In a pure democracy the majority has the right to decide. The whole point of a liberal democracy is to put limits on majoritarianism through a constitution and checks and balances. The Bill of Rights was enacted precisely so that some core rights were always secure and 51% of the people could not vote away the rights of the other 49%.
Constitutions and checks and balances are fundamentally anti-democratic. They don't exist to place vague, polite limits on "majoritarianism." Their pure purpose is to restrict the government entirely to its specific function of protecting individual rights. They serve no other function. Government itself has no other legitimate function.
The Bill of Rights was enacted as a result of negotiations with slave owning states that posed a serious contradiction in a rights-protecting republic, but this issue could not be resolved at the time. Today it serves no purpose other than introducing contradictions and confusion for people who don't understand the concept of rights. I seriously doubt it would exist if the founding documents were being written today.
Terms like "liberal democracy" are no different than "liberal dictatorship." It's just a contradiction. The strange term seems to be used by big-government leftists to keep advocating for rights-violating policies (AKA authoritarianism) while thinking they're liberals for some reason.
And we don't actually know what the majority opinion/general will is until we know where the majority falls on every specific policy issue. Opinion polling doesn't do a very good job of telling us that, and then the political parties compound the problem by splitting the majority will in divergent directions and inflaming partisan hostilities to the point where we can't have a rational conversation in the first place.
Hi. That's what I mean. In a liberal democracy majorities have the right to govern *insofar as* they respect constitutional limits and individual rights.
• Liberal democracy: Totally agree with your overall description. I’ll add that we have allowed the federal government to grow beyond its constitutional mandate to “support the common defense and general welfare of the United States” and this is causing political and social dysfunction.
• People need to be far better informed: I’ve changed my mind on this over the years,…with size, scope, complexity, opaque nature of the federal government, it is impossible to create an informed citizenry. And that’s even if you remove propaganda and partisan hostility as factors. We should keep trying to create an informed citizenry, but we have to be realistic on what that means in relation to the federal govt. The founders didn’t trust an informed citizenry when the federal government was small enough to drown in a bathtub; I now understand why.
• Need clearer definitions: Maybe,…I think the first thing we need to do is remove democracy from the federal government and return to a representative government where the common man doesn’t care nearly as much about such issues. Leave it to the elites. We need to redirect the democratic energy to local and state governance,let the elected elites help focus on national definitions.
• Civic dimension: Yes, absolutely. How do we bring back civic virtue when we now live in a society with a weakening common culture where diversity has broken down into division and political organizations are looking out for their own self-interest? Its lord of the flies out there!
• Political Parties: Agree they are toxic to the body politic currently, but don’t we think that is because it is too influenced by democratic pressures? These parties cannot govern or manage effectively if it has to serve the interests of the voters. What do you think of reversing the 1972 McGovern Commission? It is how we elected Trump.
Thanks for your reply. The short answer to your post is all of the above, with one exception. The point about limiting the people’s input into democracy is what I’m saying doesn’t work and that’s the reason why Shikha Dalmia overreacted above and accused me of wanting to do away with the checks and balances system. She would have known better if she had read the two-page explainer I messaged her last week. I don’t know how she can be so anti-majoritarian and still think ISMA conferences can build a *majority* coalition to save the republic.
The point of liberal democracy is twofold, like the term itself. Liberalism seeks to restrain democratic impulses with checks and balances and bills of rights, and democracy seeks to create a system where self-government (rational, deliberative, egalitarian, and representative) is possible in the first place. The latter is what Congress in the United States, as well as political parties and parliaments generally are failing to do.
I’m part of a deliberative democratic movement that seeks to include the public more into the deliberative process in order to get citizens better informed and build trust, as well as to make politics easier and more transparent for politicians and citizens alike. Whereas Shikha thinks I want to eliminate institutions that keep us safe, what deliberative democrats attempt to do is include the public more into institutional processes. So there needs to be a new institutional solution, effectively a civic dimension to government and constitutionalism like a fourth branch of government. Libertarians will inevitably lose their minds when I say “fourth branch” because they will immediately think “expanding government.” No. Government is big enough. The problem is government is dysfunctional and lacks clear direction or a consistent policy vision. The state of public opinion is also a disaster.
In liberal democracies there’s no escaping the necessity of dealing with public opinion, so we might as well confront the problem head on rather than trying to avoid it by making tweaks to the Constitution. Don’t get me wrong; I’m fully in favor of the constitutional tweaks Andy and Shikha want to make. But liberalism is in a global crisis and tweaking the US Constitution doesn’t adequately respond to that crisis. Now, if we step back and look at it, the core of liberal-democratic constitutionalism is the separation of powers and regular elections, with bills of rights tacked on to protect individuals. Clearly missing is a civic dimension or fourth branch to organize and improve public opinion, build trust, transparency and accountability, and to foster a patriotic liberal nationalism.
This is the answer to the JD Vance “postliberals” who accuse liberals of being incapable of cultivating community and patriotic feelings, or of renewing the social contract in a way that better satisfies the working class. Of course, the postlibs cannot do those things either, but their critique of liberalism hits home well enough.
With postliberalism in mind, I’m part of the movement for deliberative democracy or the “deliberative wave.” There’s a corresponding movement in economics seeking to decenter “growth” as the dominant frame of thinking for economic development similar to how I want to decenter/supplement the separation of powers/3 branches idea of constitutionalism with a fourth branch, essentially a civic-epistemic, opensource deliberative branch.
Economists are beginning to understand that we need to supplement growth with a range of market-based solutions, government policies, and social movements like labor unions to spread wealth around more. Far too much profit and power from growth gets concentrated at the top resulting in angry working classes, bloated oligarchies, cronyism, and invisible trillions in tax havens. The angry populists on the right and left are right that there are serious problems with neoliberal globalization, but that doesn’t mean we should start voting for the Democratic Socialists of America. Hell no. There’s a far better way for Democrats to win elections by responding seriously to populist concerns while being socially moderate, proud patriots and political liberals at the same time.
One of the speakers at ISMA’s conference this year (sold out!), LibCon2026, is Danielle Allen. Her book Justice By Means Of Democracy summarizes the principles behind both of the movements I just described in political theory and political economy respectively.
The English Book of Common Prayer of 1549 contains a bit of wisdom "There was never anything by the wit of man so well devised, or so sure established, which in continuance of time hath not been corrupted." Archbishop Cranmer was applying this to the reformation of the Church of England but I think it is applicable to secular institutions as well. Governments, too.
I am not sure that the "reconstructionists" could promulgate a new constitutional order in this digital age when lies have circled the globe several times before truth has heard the alarm bell to wake up. How many influencers and content creators (not to mention malign foreign actors) would interject themselves into the process of refounding America. Imagine the immense transfers of cash that would occur in order to preserve the powerful interests that already have power today.
To my way of thinking the system simply needs to collapse under its own weight in order for organic recreation to occur. It also will not be easy or even without some violent conflicts.
Perhaps a second stab at something like the Articles of Confederation which allows maximum freedom and autonomy for the states. Obviously the role of the central government would be vastly circumscribed and though operating similarly to the EU would largely depend on market forces and economic interests to drive interstate policy. Some states (Texas, California, Florida?) might even decide to go totally independent. Some states might merge to maximize efficiencies.
I would say that there are four major symptoms, at least, that need an explanation:
1. Electing someone who ignores their Oath and the Law
2. Corruption and weakening of the Legal System
3. Worsening poverty and wealth inequality
4. Abandoning allies and starting wars
You've only partly explained these, at least here. For instance, you explain why 1. is a problem because we rely on mere customs, but why was the guy elected in the first place?
I appreciate the post in any case, and I'll be following your writings.
Quaint. Unfortunately, between a third and half the country want to get rid the current system so they can replace it with a dictatorship. You've heard of postliberals?
People who don't really understand politics invariably look to the wrong bits of the foundational texts. The true core of the American experiment is found in the statement defining the absolute role of the state: “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men...That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.”
In other words, the sole moral function of government is to protect individual rights and any government that's destructive to those ends loses its legitimacy and should be altered. The tragedy today is that we don't have any mainstream voices who understands, let alone supports, a rights-protecting state.
Politics isn't about "consensus" or empty slogans about "building something better." Politics is strictly about the protection of rights, which automatically mandates a capitalist economic system. Until we've got mainstream voices explicitly advocating for this, our slide toward dictatorship and third-world poverty will continue.
Then we'd already be back in feudal dictatorships.
It works just fine when we have political professionals who actually understand the subject of politics and ensure that our political mechanisms function correctly.
It doesn't even have that much to do with the politicians themselves who can't exercise power that we don't first grant them through the failures of our political experts.
I admit when I saw the teaser in my mail inbox, I approached this piece with some measure of cynicism, but I was rewarded notwithstanding my lack of faith. ;-) This is well worth the read, as are the transcripts of the podcasts [I'm a reader, not an audio listener, so thanks for the transcripts]. Good food for thought. And as a libertarian, I appreciate the implicit distinction between libertarian principles and real-world fantasies.
Its second founding would be the 1830s. The results of the Civil War did lead to some centralizations, but not anywhere as much as we're taught they and did and more importantly the basic institutional designs and systemic-paradigm of the group of groups knowns as the jacksonians persisted in the NE, Mid West, and West persisted until after WW2 and didnt go away over night (in fact, we retain much of it, its just largely nullified)
When you write "That government must be truly representative of the people, in all their diversity of beliefs and interests."
Yes. this is true. And it requires, among other things, substantial legal/regulatory variability and policy variability, even down to the local level. We used to have it and theres no reason we cant today. China has actually had since the early 1980s (Xi and Co have been trying hard to undo this and centralize things, we’ll see if they succeed, pushback seems to be forming)
As late as the 1930s both the Democratic and Republican Parties were still decentralized, publicly accessible and internally contestable mass member party and the country it operated in was still a widely and deeply federated system with legal/regulatory variability, policy variability, local governments were still the biggest fiscal actors, the economy was still one structurally biased towards being one dominated by geographically dispersed and redundant diversified mid sized firms, banking/finance was still structurally locally anchored and relative to today quite pluralized, education was decentralized, etc.
This didnt end over night, there was a multidecadal transformation phase following WW2. And now we've reached, and have for decades at this point, a place where are relatively deeply centralized, standardized, and our governmental-corporate-financial institutional spaces are quite decision making exclusionary
We're not the first folks to consider this. A future President of the United States wrote and opined about the challenges of maintaining a healthy and equitable civil society and government in 1838. Lincoln's Lyceum Address feels downright prophetic in 2026.
(It's a remarkable document for its brevity, ambition, and use of history and language. I've been captivated by it since I first read it in 1980.)
Two parts of his speech and its underlying thoughts have particular importance: one, that the circumstances that led to the founding of the United States have changed, and as a result, new tools must be developed and used to ensure that government continues to serve the people. His answer is the development of a "political religion" that puts reasoned respect for the rule of law and the civil rights and liberties at the center of *everything* American.
The second is his warning against the ambitions of world-historical figures, the avarice and hubris they bring to nations, and the harm they cause to people everywhere. We can't say we weren't warned.
I think part of the problem with governance from the 1970s onward has been an abdication of the willingness to work on issues that require both structural and social changes, and the capitulation to people and organizations that want atavistic changes which would limit who participates in society and what rights and liberties apply to different groups of people. The Lyceum Address should be a reminder that it's our obligation to do that work, to both maintain and improve our government and the cultures and communities that support it.
Agreed. I was talking about the organization, which is the other big side of things. Culture and ethical alignments are very important but organizational design and forms is also very important. And, over the long run at least, worldviews, culture and ethical alignments can be effected by the design and forms of institutional spaces and the broader institutional topology that contains them, both formal-governmental ones and non governmental ones (e.g. business, academe, etc.) and eventually it can even be that worldviews, culture and ethical alignments eventually become increasingly downstream of organizational design and forms via the layout and designs of decision making processes (and who has serious access to those processes) of decision making related to culture, socialization processes, incentive structures, etc.
Great article. Only quibble is this line: "That government must be truly representative of the people, in all their diversity of beliefs and interests."
This sentiment may be fine at local/state levels of governance, but a federal government that has the purpose of serving the greater good of the country (needs of the people) cannot also serve the will of the people (wants of the people).
We are too large and diverse of a country to have full representation of everybody's interest vested in a single, centralized authority. A government of this nature that tries to serve everybody's interests will end up serving nobody and be in constant conflict.
Very good comment. The "will of the people" is actually a bit of a philosophical problem that future ISMA conferences will need to address directly. In a liberal democracy the majority has the right to decide policy, as well as to guide the broad historical trajectory of constitutional interpretation, so long as it abides by the constitution and safeguards minority and individual rights.
Problem is the general will does not exist in a ready-made form and, as we see daily, the people need to be far better informed and less subject to propaganda and partisan hostilities. Party systems in liberal democracies have altogether failed to produce either a coherent general will or authoritative notions of the common good and national interest.
Without clearer definitions of the general will, the common good, and the national interest, nations cannot make consistent policy decisions or plan for the future. So it's not surprising that we are tending toward dictatorship and autocracy in liberal democracies today. That's the only way to get much done under our current understanding of "constitutionalism," which almost entirely lacks a civic dimension.
Think about it: our system of government and constitutionalism is profoundly dependent on public opinion and yet we have no system for organizing or improving public opinion.... Besides political parties that are clearly toxic to the body politic.
Actually, no. In a pure democracy the majority has the right to decide. The whole point of a liberal democracy is to put limits on majoritarianism through a constitution and checks and balances. The Bill of Rights was enacted precisely so that some core rights were always secure and 51% of the people could not vote away the rights of the other 49%.
Constitutions and checks and balances are fundamentally anti-democratic. They don't exist to place vague, polite limits on "majoritarianism." Their pure purpose is to restrict the government entirely to its specific function of protecting individual rights. They serve no other function. Government itself has no other legitimate function.
The Bill of Rights was enacted as a result of negotiations with slave owning states that posed a serious contradiction in a rights-protecting republic, but this issue could not be resolved at the time. Today it serves no purpose other than introducing contradictions and confusion for people who don't understand the concept of rights. I seriously doubt it would exist if the founding documents were being written today.
Terms like "liberal democracy" are no different than "liberal dictatorship." It's just a contradiction. The strange term seems to be used by big-government leftists to keep advocating for rights-violating policies (AKA authoritarianism) while thinking they're liberals for some reason.
I have never heard a compelling argument for more democracy.
And we don't actually know what the majority opinion/general will is until we know where the majority falls on every specific policy issue. Opinion polling doesn't do a very good job of telling us that, and then the political parties compound the problem by splitting the majority will in divergent directions and inflaming partisan hostilities to the point where we can't have a rational conversation in the first place.
Hi. That's what I mean. In a liberal democracy majorities have the right to govern *insofar as* they respect constitutional limits and individual rights.
• Liberal democracy: Totally agree with your overall description. I’ll add that we have allowed the federal government to grow beyond its constitutional mandate to “support the common defense and general welfare of the United States” and this is causing political and social dysfunction.
• People need to be far better informed: I’ve changed my mind on this over the years,…with size, scope, complexity, opaque nature of the federal government, it is impossible to create an informed citizenry. And that’s even if you remove propaganda and partisan hostility as factors. We should keep trying to create an informed citizenry, but we have to be realistic on what that means in relation to the federal govt. The founders didn’t trust an informed citizenry when the federal government was small enough to drown in a bathtub; I now understand why.
• Need clearer definitions: Maybe,…I think the first thing we need to do is remove democracy from the federal government and return to a representative government where the common man doesn’t care nearly as much about such issues. Leave it to the elites. We need to redirect the democratic energy to local and state governance,let the elected elites help focus on national definitions.
• Civic dimension: Yes, absolutely. How do we bring back civic virtue when we now live in a society with a weakening common culture where diversity has broken down into division and political organizations are looking out for their own self-interest? Its lord of the flies out there!
• Political Parties: Agree they are toxic to the body politic currently, but don’t we think that is because it is too influenced by democratic pressures? These parties cannot govern or manage effectively if it has to serve the interests of the voters. What do you think of reversing the 1972 McGovern Commission? It is how we elected Trump.
Thanks for your reply. The short answer to your post is all of the above, with one exception. The point about limiting the people’s input into democracy is what I’m saying doesn’t work and that’s the reason why Shikha Dalmia overreacted above and accused me of wanting to do away with the checks and balances system. She would have known better if she had read the two-page explainer I messaged her last week. I don’t know how she can be so anti-majoritarian and still think ISMA conferences can build a *majority* coalition to save the republic.
The point of liberal democracy is twofold, like the term itself. Liberalism seeks to restrain democratic impulses with checks and balances and bills of rights, and democracy seeks to create a system where self-government (rational, deliberative, egalitarian, and representative) is possible in the first place. The latter is what Congress in the United States, as well as political parties and parliaments generally are failing to do.
I’m part of a deliberative democratic movement that seeks to include the public more into the deliberative process in order to get citizens better informed and build trust, as well as to make politics easier and more transparent for politicians and citizens alike. Whereas Shikha thinks I want to eliminate institutions that keep us safe, what deliberative democrats attempt to do is include the public more into institutional processes. So there needs to be a new institutional solution, effectively a civic dimension to government and constitutionalism like a fourth branch of government. Libertarians will inevitably lose their minds when I say “fourth branch” because they will immediately think “expanding government.” No. Government is big enough. The problem is government is dysfunctional and lacks clear direction or a consistent policy vision. The state of public opinion is also a disaster.
In liberal democracies there’s no escaping the necessity of dealing with public opinion, so we might as well confront the problem head on rather than trying to avoid it by making tweaks to the Constitution. Don’t get me wrong; I’m fully in favor of the constitutional tweaks Andy and Shikha want to make. But liberalism is in a global crisis and tweaking the US Constitution doesn’t adequately respond to that crisis. Now, if we step back and look at it, the core of liberal-democratic constitutionalism is the separation of powers and regular elections, with bills of rights tacked on to protect individuals. Clearly missing is a civic dimension or fourth branch to organize and improve public opinion, build trust, transparency and accountability, and to foster a patriotic liberal nationalism.
This is the answer to the JD Vance “postliberals” who accuse liberals of being incapable of cultivating community and patriotic feelings, or of renewing the social contract in a way that better satisfies the working class. Of course, the postlibs cannot do those things either, but their critique of liberalism hits home well enough.
With postliberalism in mind, I’m part of the movement for deliberative democracy or the “deliberative wave.” There’s a corresponding movement in economics seeking to decenter “growth” as the dominant frame of thinking for economic development similar to how I want to decenter/supplement the separation of powers/3 branches idea of constitutionalism with a fourth branch, essentially a civic-epistemic, opensource deliberative branch.
Economists are beginning to understand that we need to supplement growth with a range of market-based solutions, government policies, and social movements like labor unions to spread wealth around more. Far too much profit and power from growth gets concentrated at the top resulting in angry working classes, bloated oligarchies, cronyism, and invisible trillions in tax havens. The angry populists on the right and left are right that there are serious problems with neoliberal globalization, but that doesn’t mean we should start voting for the Democratic Socialists of America. Hell no. There’s a far better way for Democrats to win elections by responding seriously to populist concerns while being socially moderate, proud patriots and political liberals at the same time.
One of the speakers at ISMA’s conference this year (sold out!), LibCon2026, is Danielle Allen. Her book Justice By Means Of Democracy summarizes the principles behind both of the movements I just described in political theory and political economy respectively.
Thanks, again, Andy for another excellent read.
The English Book of Common Prayer of 1549 contains a bit of wisdom "There was never anything by the wit of man so well devised, or so sure established, which in continuance of time hath not been corrupted." Archbishop Cranmer was applying this to the reformation of the Church of England but I think it is applicable to secular institutions as well. Governments, too.
I am not sure that the "reconstructionists" could promulgate a new constitutional order in this digital age when lies have circled the globe several times before truth has heard the alarm bell to wake up. How many influencers and content creators (not to mention malign foreign actors) would interject themselves into the process of refounding America. Imagine the immense transfers of cash that would occur in order to preserve the powerful interests that already have power today.
To my way of thinking the system simply needs to collapse under its own weight in order for organic recreation to occur. It also will not be easy or even without some violent conflicts.
Perhaps a second stab at something like the Articles of Confederation which allows maximum freedom and autonomy for the states. Obviously the role of the central government would be vastly circumscribed and though operating similarly to the EU would largely depend on market forces and economic interests to drive interstate policy. Some states (Texas, California, Florida?) might even decide to go totally independent. Some states might merge to maximize efficiencies.
I would say that there are four major symptoms, at least, that need an explanation:
1. Electing someone who ignores their Oath and the Law
2. Corruption and weakening of the Legal System
3. Worsening poverty and wealth inequality
4. Abandoning allies and starting wars
You've only partly explained these, at least here. For instance, you explain why 1. is a problem because we rely on mere customs, but why was the guy elected in the first place?
I appreciate the post in any case, and I'll be following your writings.
Institutions decay when procedure becomes a substitute for judgment.
Quaint. Unfortunately, between a third and half the country want to get rid the current system so they can replace it with a dictatorship. You've heard of postliberals?
People who don't really understand politics invariably look to the wrong bits of the foundational texts. The true core of the American experiment is found in the statement defining the absolute role of the state: “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men...That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.”
In other words, the sole moral function of government is to protect individual rights and any government that's destructive to those ends loses its legitimacy and should be altered. The tragedy today is that we don't have any mainstream voices who understands, let alone supports, a rights-protecting state.
Politics isn't about "consensus" or empty slogans about "building something better." Politics is strictly about the protection of rights, which automatically mandates a capitalist economic system. Until we've got mainstream voices explicitly advocating for this, our slide toward dictatorship and third-world poverty will continue.
That falls apart at first contact with politicians, especially once they're in power.
Then we'd already be back in feudal dictatorships.
It works just fine when we have political professionals who actually understand the subject of politics and ensure that our political mechanisms function correctly.
It doesn't even have that much to do with the politicians themselves who can't exercise power that we don't first grant them through the failures of our political experts.
I admit when I saw the teaser in my mail inbox, I approached this piece with some measure of cynicism, but I was rewarded notwithstanding my lack of faith. ;-) This is well worth the read, as are the transcripts of the podcasts [I'm a reader, not an audio listener, so thanks for the transcripts]. Good food for thought. And as a libertarian, I appreciate the implicit distinction between libertarian principles and real-world fantasies.
Modern version of resisting tyranny
https://tinyurl.com/bloomberg-minnesota