American Democracy - A Status Update

FRANCIS FUKUYAMA: One Single Day. That’s All It Took for the World to Look Away from Us.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/05/opinion/jan-6-global-democracy.html

A year after the Capitol insurrection, the world still sees something broken in America’s democracy
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/01/05/capitol-insurrection-global-american-democrcay-broken/

Republican “populists” who now celebrate the insurrection are products of the same elite networks that have always run the country. By Stephen Marche

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/ivy-league-apologists-january-6-gop-elitism-populsim/621153/
“Given that America has been let down, repeatedly, by members of the same expert class, why does it keep relying on them?
​The answer lies in the specific nature of Ivy League elitism, which is an aristocracy of networks. Ivy League graduates make up 0.4 percent of the country. They are significantly overrepresented in Fortune 500 C-suites, in the House of Representatives, in the Senate, in academia, and in the media. Biden/Harris was the first presidential ticket in 44 years without an Ivy League alumnus on board. For a decade, the U.S. Supreme Court consisted of nothing but Ivy League graduates. And these entities are exclusive and self-perpetuating. Legacies at Harvard are accepted at a rate of nearly 34 percent, compared with just 5.9 percent of ordinary people. Being born to it isn’t the only way in: Buying admittance is the simplest. (Charles Kushner gave Harvard $250,000 a year for 10 years to guarantee admission for his meritless son.)
​Whoever attends has been established in the architecture of power before they have had a chance to do anything, and that is key: The network gives power”. 

Related: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/real-threat-to-american-democracy-by-michael-lind-2022-01

Dynamism as a Public Philosophy
https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/dynamism-as-a-public-philosophy
The populist turn of the American right has created a policy affinity between nationalist conservatives and mainstream progressives. Both seem to agree that an emphasis on dynamism has undermined our economy's ability to prioritize workers, families, and communities. But in fact, the trouble facing America's heartland is more likely the result of a lack of dynamism than an excess of it.
 
The Republican Party Is Succeeding Because We Are Not a True Democracy
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/03/opinion/us-democracy-constitution.html
 
The Radicalization of J.D. Vance
As he runs for the Senate, the ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ author has gone from media darling to establishment pariah. Is his new, fiery, right-wing persona an act? Or is something more interesting going on?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/01/04/jd-vance-hillbilly-elegy-radicalization/