Partly it was an organizational mismatch. The United States is a federation—where the states wield as much power as the national government—for good reason. The country’s safe security geography combined with its rich economic geography meant the federal government didn’t need to do much. For the first three generations of U.S. history, all the federal government was perennially responsible for was building a few roads, regulating immigration, and collecting tariffs. The Americans have never had a tradition of governing excellence* because for much of their history they didn’t really need a
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