America Was Built to Fail

And it has, repeatedly, only to be revolutionized and rebuilt. What kind of country will we create now?

A fallen statue of Jefferson Davis in Richmond, Virginia. Photo: Parker Michels-Boyce/AFP/Getty Images

Institutions, like individuals, never change because they realize they ought to; they only ever change because they’re forced to, by crisis, catastrophe. No one goes to their first AA meeting because they recognize that they have a drinking problem…