Michael Lewis wrote a book called The Fifth Risk. It's a breezy little tome at about 250 pages that tells the narrative of the evisceration of expertise in the government. David von Drehle picks up this thread and explains (without actually doing it explicitly) why much of the Democratic agenda fails to resonate politically.
The basic issue should be incontrovertible at this point: The "Reagan Revolution" sought to - in the words of Grover Norquist - shrink government small enough so that you could drown it in a bathtub. Charming. The result of 40 years of this thinking is a government that struggles to fulfill the tasks handed to it. As von Drehle notes, this is addressed, if that's the right word, by Democrats simply throwing money at it. What is usually NOT done is the slow and patient work of building up bureaucratic capacity to actually translate policy goals into tangible public good.
Von Drehle notes the program that was created to provide rent relief during the pandemic. Much of the money is still there, undistributed, because finding a way to disperse is tricky. Anyone who has dealt with a phone tree or a government website knows how clunky and inefficient they can be. Add in the natural disposition towards inaction rather than action, and you have a well-intentioned, potentially politically popular measure that lands with a thud.
Americans have had a fraught relationship with the idea of bureaucracy. We tend to be suspicious of the state, and that goes a million times more for the radical right wing fringe that makes up a quarter of the population and think wearing a facemask is the same as being sent to Auschwitz. However, we need a functional state. The world is big and complicated.
I was optimistic that Biden "got this." Of course, Manchinema may make that insight moot.
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