I’m now sure our institutions must be dismantled and rebuilt.
COVID radicalized me.
I have long thought that American institutions were in various states of decline and needed to be revitalized. I was wrong. American institutions are rotten to their core. Tens of thousands of people will die, if we are lucky.
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Trump’s leadership has been horrendous, and he must be excoriated for it. The ripple effects of him downplaying the risk continue to be felt.
However, the blame cannot fall solely on his shoulders. Italy is shut down. Spain is shut down. France is shut down. The rot runs deeper than a single president. Mitigating the harm from COVID and rebuilding our institutions to prevent the next crisis requires accurately diagnosing the problem.
There are three reasons for our decaying institutions. First, we have become complacent. Second, vetoes have become too widely distributed, the tragedy of the anti-commons. Third, we have an elite that is fundamentally unserious.
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The epidemic will get worse. People will die. Preventing the next crisis requires building functional institutions. The alphabet soup must be dismantled and rebuilt. Any other path forward condemns us to helplessness in the face of the next crisis.
Mark Lutter is the founder and executive director of the Charter Cities Institute.
