REAL CLEAR POLITICS
When confidence in our institutions collapses
by Professor Charles Lipson
August 4, 2021

…Is there any connection among the daily stories about spiking murder rates, rampant shoplifting, open borders, contested policing, confusion about COVID masks, and official hypocrisy, duplicity, and incompetence? Yes, and it is a connection that illuminates our country’s deepest problems. Beyond the specifics of each news story looms a much larger problem: a palpable breakdown in public order at the same time the public has lost confidence in our government officials and the institutions they lead. The two meta-problems—the breakdown of order and erosion of public confidence—are deeply intertwined because we count on our leaders and institutions to give us reliable information, provide a stable environment (so each of us can go about our lives), and abide by the same rules we all do. READ MORE