I have a new book, out this week, Saving Can-Do: How to Revive the Spirit of America. One reason America is fraying, I argue, is because of a root flaw in post-1960s law: the idea that law should make or validate correct choices. Law is everywhere—in thick rulebooks, years-long procedures, self-interested people pounding the table for their alleged rights ….
 
America’s energy comes from individual ownership of choices and values—not tiptoeing through the day with a little lawyer on our shoulders. The proper role of law is to define the scope of free choice by setting outer boundaries—no crime, no pollution, and so forth—not by extruding daily choices through the eye of a legal needle. Law is supposed to protect freedom, not replace freedom.

American exceptionalism is rooted in individual initiative. Americans have a cultural belief in self-determination. America is the place where people can make the best of themselves.
 
Over the past few decades, America’s can-do culture has been corroded by a sense of futility. The failures are clearly visible in institutional ineptitude—say, the inability to modernize infrastructure or to fix poor schools. But the cultural rot is more pernicious. Americans no longer believe we can make a difference, or build a better future. We feel disempowered. Watch what you say. Just follow the rules. Instead of striding towards our goals, Americans increasingly feel like rats in a maze. Many turn to MAGA.

China’s autocratic society comes to life in Breakneck, the new book by Dan Wang. Nothing gets in the way of public works. Subways go through buildings. High-speed rail lines are built seemingly overnight. Industrial dominance in solar panels and electric cars is the result of deliberate policy.
 
Breakage is common. Top-down mandates can’t adapt to unforeseen circumstances and market realities. Cities of apartment buildings remain empty. One provincial czar had a kind of genius for idiotic mega-projects, including a giant ski resort in a place without snow.
 
What’s most breathtaking, to me, is the state’s intrusion into personal lives.

Maybe it’s me, but the news cycle seems both terrifying and tedious. We’re treated to a steady diet of crises followed by reactions which create new crises. It’s as if we’re in a straitjacket, bouncing off today’s emergency instead of making deliberate choices that might lead to a coherent future.

In a thoughtful New York Times column, Ben Rhodes explains how “short-term compulsions blind us to the forces remaking our lives.” He characterizes Trump as seeking “short-term ‘wins’ at the expense of the future”—for example, ignoring unsustainable national debt, climate change, and other existential perils. But Rhodes says Democrats too are trapped in short-termism—“spend[ing] more time defending what is being lost than imagining what will take its place.”

Politics now has a dizzying quality. The roller-coaster of Trump policies―now we do this, now we do the opposite―is being matched by wild swings in the Democratic positions, led by socialist Zohran Mamdani's victory in the New York City mayoral primary. Just imagine, as liberal columnist Joe Klein mused, the staggering inefficiency of a municipal grocery store operating under union work rules: "Sorry, I only restock on Thursdays."

Centrist democrats are trying to mobilize an Abundance agenda to cut through red tape to build housing and infrastructure. That's a step in the right direction, but pruning the red tape jungle doesn't work by itself. Officials must have authority to make tradeoff judgments.

The world today feels like a rowboat in a storm, with leaders directing their powers towards destruction and disruption. There's no line of sight towards a strong and stable American government.
 
There's growing consensus, however, that paralytic bureaucracy must be replaced. But replaced with what? DOGE is swinging its wrecking ball without a new governing vision. Democrats seem almost catatonic, calling weakly for more government instead of effective government.

So far Elon Musk's DOGE initiative has focused on cutting programs and terminating civil servants, not reforms to improve public performance. But there's broad public and expert opinion that government operating systems are overdue for overhaul.

This forum will focus on the operational failures of the current state, and will include proposals to empower common sense solutions, make government more manageable, and clarify the role of oversight by courts.

America is bogged down in red tape. This is not a secret. Common sense is nowhere, because common sense is illegal.

A brigade of worthy new books is sounding the alarm, and are summarized by David Brooks in his column this week: “We Can Achieve Great Things.” Other public intellectuals calling for a better way of governing are IT expert Jennifer Pahlka, law professor Nicholas Bagley, and political scientist Francis Fukuyama.

What's missing is a discussion of the philosophical flaw underlying the modern state.

Disruption can be good or bad. Or both. Courts will decide how far the new administration can go. At Common Good, our focus is to try to ride in front of the DOGE stampede and turn it towards new visions of how to fix endemic public failures.
 
Tearing down the status quo is not enough, and will have unintended consequences. America needs a new governing philosophy. Here are two big opportunities for new operating structures.

It's hard to keep track of what's being knocked over in the continuing DOGE stampede. Broad public resentment at Washington fuels the deconstruction, and shows no sign of abating. Over time, courts will try to impose some order on the bureaucratic rubble.
 
The end goal, presumably, is a government that works better and is more respectful of local needs and values. But tearing things down is not a vision for sensible government. Will a better form of government emerge from the rubble?

The noise from Washington is an orchestrated symphony of wrecking balls. Most Americans agree that the red tape state needs to be replaced. But where's the vision for its replacement?
 
Take civil service—today, federal employees are unaccountable and unmanageable, thanks to statutory and union controls that eviscerate executive authority. What's needed is not a regime based on fear, however, but one that instills mutual trust and pride.

There’s lots going on in Washington, and in the world, without any clear ending points. Sometimes, in these periods of change, it is possible to break free of outmoded conventions that prevent society from moving forward. Our mission at Common Good is to simplify governing frameworks so that Americans can roll up their sleeves and take initiative. The opportunities are nearly endless—to modernize infrastructure, fix broken schools, and refocus government on results instead of red tape.

The prospect of overhauling government has near-universal appeal. But experts from all sides are dousing the dream with cold water. Changing regulations takes several years. De-regulation will often conflict with statutory mandates. Most of what government does is not controversial—say, Medicare, a standing army, and national parks. Experts such as Brookings' Elaine Kamarck have shown that the impacts of any plausible de-regulation will be at the margin.

Voters have revolted. But laws and institutions don't change just because people are angry. Appointing rebels to run agencies won't change their massive legal superstructures.
 
Real change in American democracy doesn't happen by diktat from the top. Change requires a vision for a better system, backed by broad support of public opinion.
 
What's the new vision? The best hope for a new vision might come from Elon Musk's efficiency commission.

Avoid talking about policy: That seems to be a theme of this presidential campaign. Voters now know that Harris was raised middle class, and that Trump has disavowed 900 pages of Heritage Foundation policy proposals.

But one policy issue is squarely on the table—civil service. Trump says he will designate 50,000 or more senior civil servants as employees at will. Civil servants in this new “Schedule F” will be like participants of Trump’s television show “The Apprentice,” where the punchline is “You’re fired!”

An idea! Policy debate has been largely absent from a campaign season pitting a theme of joy against eating pets.
 
The IDEA came, predictably, from Elon Musk, who offered to run a “government efficiency commission” for Donald Trump. Trump immediately embraced the idea.
 
But what would an “efficiency commission” actually do?

Polls are expecting a divided Congress. One sure bet is that the new president and new Congress will not fix how government works. Change is too hard. All those Washington lobbyists and lawyers are doing fine with thousand-page rulebooks and years-long bureaucratic processes.

Change requires outside pressure. Sometimes it’s a crisis, as in the Depression. Sometimes it’s a shift in public opinion, as in the Progressive Era. Sooner rather than later, pressures will likely require replacing the paralytic and wasteful red tape state. The world order is too perilous to perpetuate an inept governing framework.

Trump and Harris sharply disagree on matters of policy, including immigration, taxes, and foreign policy. They also present different profiles of leadership.

But neither candidate offers a coherent vision to fix the tangled bureaucracy that paralyzes our society—no vision to fix broken schools, deal with homelessness, modernize infrastructure, cut health care red tape, streamline defense procurement, or make government manageable.

Instead both candidates offer symbolic reforms.

The roiling waters around Biden’s candidacy reflect a broad fear of handing the election to Trump. Like most in the free world, we share that fear. But we think Democrats need more than a candidate with mental acuity.

Democrats need a candidate who can begin to deal with the problems that gave rise to Trump. He sees that America has been weakened by internal guilt and indecision, and by an unwillingness to fix what’s broken. Democrats need to pull their heads out of the sand and address obvious weaknesses.

Here is what we think America needs to become strong again.