Not the Way to Spend a Decade

Yesterday, when I was looking through my old posts to see if I had any about Jane Jacobs, I came across my 2012 post about Chris Hayes' book Twilight of the Elites, which included some favorite quotes, including this one:

Progress is dependent upon a productive and dynamic tension between institutionalism and insurrectionism. Insurrectionists keep our institutions honest. Institutionalists are stewards of our collective public life. The most important social project we must undertake in the wake of the fail decade [the 2000s] is reconstructing our institutions so that we once again feel comfortable trusting them. Because without the social cohesion that trusted institutions provide, we cannot produce the level of consensus necessary to confront our greatest challenges (page 136).

Well.

"The most important social project we must undertake in the wake of the fail decade [the 2000s] is reconstructing our institutions so that we once again feel comfortable trusting them."

Hayes wrote those words in the first year or so of the 2010s, and here we are in 2019, and I'd say we've spent the last nine years doing the exact opposite of reconstructing institutions.

Which reminds me: I don't think I ever recommended the Why Is This Happening podcast with Astra Taylor called Are We a Democracy?