Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress—and How to Bring It Back

by Marc J. Dunkelman

In the decades that followed the 1960s, progressivism became a movement defined by the parks department unable to rebuild ice skating rinks, and the railroad unable to build a train station—a movement of social justice activists unable to act against brutal cops, of climate activists incapable of delivering clean energy, and of housing activists incapable of erecting new homes. By tipping the scales too far from Hamiltonianism, and too far toward Jeffersonianism, progressivism became, in short, a movement of do-gooders unable to do enough good. The diffusion of power hasn’t just undermined government—it has short-sheeted progressivism’s political appeal. And that is perhaps the most important lesson of the last several decades. Absent a progressivism that works, what reformers get is a progressivism left vulnerable to demagoguery. When government appears incompetent, voters turn to figures like Donald Trump.