The 21st century so far hasn’t been the best of times for America. First 9/11, then a precedent. The economy has suffered, and politics has been upended. American self-confidence has been badly bruised, and public trust in institutions has plummeted. What can we do about it?
That’s the question that John Cogan and Kevin Warsh, both policy veterans, asked themselves in September 2020 when prompted by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. She had just taken over as director of Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, where both men are affiliated, and she made a pained but probing observation.
Tunku Varadarajan, a Wall Street Journal contributor, is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and at New York University Law School’s Classical Liberal Institute. This article is reprinted by permission.
