The political crisis we face is so pervasive that it is almost invisible: Americans have lost confidence in institutions. Every institution. Church. State. Media. Schools. On average, the portion of Americans who have confidence in institutions has fallen about 60% since the late 1970s. It's tough to sustain a society in those conditions.
Right now we have two response to this crisis. One is the Trump response of tribal impulses, cynically decrying every expert and the institution he rode in on as corrupt or misguided.
The MAGA crowd's take on institutions was articulated by Rush Limbaugh in 2009.
"So, we have now the four corners of deceit, and the two universes in which we live. The universe of lies, the universe of reality, and the four corners of deceit:
government,
academia,
science, and
the media.
Those institutions are now corrupt and exist by virtue of deceit.”
"So, we have now the four corners of deceit, and the two universes in which we live. The universe of lies, the universe of reality, and the four corners of deceit:
government,
academia,
science, and
the media.
Those institutions are now corrupt and exist by virtue of deceit.”
Rejecting the institutions that define our modern world is akin to embracing a Hatfield and McCoy kind of world where you can't do much more than live like early Americans from a time when it took about 90% of the population to feed us. It is a world that excites survivalists.
That's a crazy path championed by crazy people.
The other option currently offered is essentially to pretend that these institutions are fine and people should appreciate them more. That actually works far better than societal collapse but it seems to consistently succeed at making more people more angry. Life is pretty good in this world but a growing percentage of people fail to believe that.
There is a third option that no one seems to be talking about.
Thomas Jefferson was part of radically redefining politics and government in 1800. Lincoln did the same about 1860, and FDR in the 1930s and 1940s. Along with Washington, these three presidents consistently rank the highest in historians assessment of great presidents.
One thing that defined them is that they had far less regard for tradition than they did for future potential.
Our next great president will be the one who creates a way to redefine our institutions so as to restore trust in them and to realize our own potential, showing little regard for institutional tradition and a great deal of regard for institutions' ability to shape our potential. An inventor creates or improves a product. An entrepreneur creates or improves an institution. The next president to successfully change our country as much and as well as Jefferson, Lincoln, and FDR will popularize entrepreneurship, leading to a change in our institutions and our experience of them. Among the many shifts this will represent is a world in which our institutions conform to our potential rather than requiring that we conform to their traditions and constraints.
It won't just require someone who is looking more to the future than the past. It will require a shift in power akin to what Jefferson and the founding fathers made. By 1800, the US had shifted power from aristocrats to the people. (Okay. That admittedly is the 30,000 foot view of this nation's founding but still contains key truths.) This next great leader will do something similar within the institutions we rely on, shifting the power over shaping them from legislators who see them as something to be built once into the customers and employees using them to be continually shaped. Like previous, great democratic changes, this will shift power from elites to everyday Americans, making our democracy more democratic.
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