Sublime

This is why freedom isn’t free. It brings you out of shallow isolation into the deeper responsibilities of self-government. Freedom is the ability to participate fully in political and economic life. The obstructions that need to be removed are the ones that block this ability. Some are outside you, in institutions and social conditions. Others are

Donald Trump kept trying to thread the needle with birther accusations. Maybe this sitting president isn’t a real American. Maybe this election—of a man, by the way, who was scrutinized the first time he ran for office—is a case where we need to take a closer look. This all happens on a more fundamental level than policy disputes. It would be

Republicans, he said, are straightforward in their contempt for government. Democrats, especially those of the Clinton school of centrist, triangulating, market-friendly politics, don’t counter the contempt with a vigorous embrace of government.

But do not let us forget that tradition is one of the true virtues of democracy. Do not let us forget that curiosity and innovation, the appetite for anything new, are among the vices of aristocracy.

The retired general Colin Powell, for instance, a veteran of both Bush administrations, argued that “Americans are looking for more government in their life, not less.”

In his 1922 opus, Public Opinion, Lippmann poses a straightforward question: Can citizens achieve a basic knowledge of public affairs and then make reasonable choices about what to do? If the answer is no, then the entire democratic project is at best a folly.

And how did our government get so bad? Bad politics. But how did our politics get so bad? Politics grew worse because politics grew.