When I moved from Britain in 2005 to live and work in the US, I was a born-again admirer of the American people, the American project and the American system of government. I had no patience with the view that the country was entering its twilight years. I was a militant anti-declinist.
Six years on, I am having second thoughts. I am not quite ready to defect, but like any fair-minded observer I am impressed by Washington’s determination to prove the pessimists right.
You could say that the debt-ceiling impasse, which prompts such thoughts, is out of the ordinary and no basis for prediction. It is an extreme case, admittedly: regardless of how it is resolved, Congress and the White House have lately taken fiscal irresponsibility to a new level. In another way, though, the breakdown is representative. Dysfunction in Washington is now so acute that many areas of policymaking have all but shut down.