OLIVER WISEMAN: The ‘Everything Is Broken’ Administration.
That term, coined by Tablet editor-in-chief Alana Newhouse a few years ago, has been bouncing around my head ever since Trump returned to power last month. In fact, I’m increasingly convinced it’s the key to understanding this administration. Allow me to explain.
In January 2021, Newhouse wrote an essay addressing what she would later describe as “the growing sense, made more glaring during the first year of the pandemic, that whole parts of America were breaking down before our eyes.” She argued that major institutions of American life—from the media to medicine—no longer worked. “Everything Is Broken,” was Newhouse’s unsparing conclusion—and the essay’s memorable headline.
Almost two years later, Newhouse wrote a follow-up, titled “Brokenism,” which translated the ideas of her first essay into a new political rubric. The most important divide in our politics, she argued, wasn’t between left and right, but between “brokenists” and “status-quoists.” Brokenists can be on the left or the right, or in the middle, but they agree that “what used to work is not working for enough people anymore.” Status-quoists, by contrast, “are invested in the established institutions of American life, even as they acknowledge that this or that problem around the margins should of course be tackled.” Bernie Sanders? Brokenist. Liz Cheney? Status-Quoist. Or—to pick further examples Newhouse doesn’t name in her piece—Joe Rogan? Brokenist. Matthew Yglesias? Status-quoist. (Presciently, Newhouse identified Marc Andreessen and Elon Musk as two tech world brokenists—two years before they would come out for Trump.)
Newhouse’s argument struck me as obviously true and important back in 2022. It explained how tech, Trump’s first term, Covid, wokeness, and so much else had combined to scramble our politics. After almost a month of Trump’s second term, “brokenism” looks like a more important idea than ever—the thread that connects so much of the revolution underway in Washington, D.C.
Read the whole thing.
