Studying China’s ability to invest for the future doesn’t make me feel we have the wrong system. It makes me feel that we are abusing our right system. There is absolutely no reason our democracy should not be able to generate the kind of focus, legitimacy, unity and stick-to-it-iveness to do big things — democratically — that China does autocratically. We’ve done it before. But we’re not doing it now because too many of our poll-driven, toxically partisan, cable-TV-addicted, money-corrupted political class are more interested in what keeps them in power than what would again make America powerful, more interested in defeating each other than saving the country.
I agree with Friedman but wonder if he is living in a Cold War era box of relative consensus amongst elites and unable to accept that partisan bickering is actually normal.
On the other hand, previous generations of partisan bickering did not have the automatic feedback loop of polling and a daily news cycle.
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