(The Nation) — The Bush years were grim for progressives, but they did offer one small consolation: the hope that if only a smart and decent person could ascend to the White House, our politics could be repaired. Now, after years of destructive austerity and hopeless stalemate, that faith is dead. People on the left will debate where to lay the blame, but few will disagree that our federal institutions seem utterly unequal to the challenges of a country still reeling from economic crisis.
Indeed, our national politics are so deformed that it’s hard even to imagine the steps necessary to fix things. Last year, The Boston Globe ran an award-winning series, “Broken City,” about the entropy in Washington. The final piece noted that potential remedies for the country’s problems are met with “almost complete indifference in Washington, the world’s capital of gridlock, even when alternative, perhaps better, ways are already at work, some in plain sight.”
