IT’S THE ESTABLISHMENT THAT IS SUPPOSED TO KEEP POLITICS SANE. BUT OURS IS TOO GREEDY, TOO INCOMPETENT — AND TOO CRAZY ITSELF — TO DO THAT. Jonathan Rauch: How American Politics Went Insane. And this is certainly right: “Trump, however, didn’t cause the chaos. The chaos caused Trump.”

But while Rauch has a point about reform leading to worse problems than it’s meant to address, I don’t think you can talk about this without also addressing the moral and intellectual decline of America’s leadership class, in and out of politics.