Two pieces caught my eye today about the current state of the government, and how the administration, when it’s not walking away from its latest rage-induced self-harm, is doing real damage to our institutions and the expertise they contain.

First, in the New York Times, Roger Cohen writes about “The Desperation of Our Diplomats:”

An American jewel is at stake, a place where honorable patriots take an oath to the Constitution — that is to say, to the rule of law, representative governance and the democratic processes that, with conspicuous failings but equally conspicuous bravery, United States diplomats have sought to extend across the world. They have done so in the belief that humanity, in the long run, will benefit from freedom. Since 1945, liberty has extended its reach. But now, at a time of growing great-power rivalry, a diminished State Department leaves a vacuum Russia and China will fill.

Second, Vanity Fair has a long piece by Michael Lewis about what’s happening to the Department of Energy under Rick Perry, who seemed surprised to discover that the DOE mainly does stuff with nuclear weapons, not oil exploration:

Donald Trump’s secretary of energy, Rick Perry, once campaigned to abolish the $30 billion agency that he now runs, which oversees everything from our nuclear arsenal to the electrical grid. The department’s budget is now on the chopping block. But does anyone in the White House really understand what the Department of Energy actually does? And what a horrible risk it would be to ignore its extraordinary, life-or-death responsibilities?

The piece makes a couple things really clear. DOE deals with some incredibly hard and technically complicated issues, and has attracted people competent to deal with them- but the current administration seems to barely care about the world’s nuclear problems (except for North Korea, which they want to outsource to China, since we’ve outsourced so much else to them). Second, there are big problems that have traditionally been hard for anyone to get a grasp on, that the administration is likely to ignore or make worse.

I’ve long liked Michael Lewis, and thought his reporting on the aftermath of the financial crisis was one of the only good things to come from the meltdown. So I’m a little worried that someone who’s so good about writing about catastrophes caused by a mix of greed, hubris, self-interested short-sightedness, that play out in a way to does virtually no harm to those who created it but great harm to everyone else, is now writing about the state of the federal government.

Then again, maybe it’ll be Moneyball Michael Lewis writing, and it’ll turn into an uplifting story about how a bunch of rebels and misfits changed the game. But I doubt it.

I suppose the most charitable way to spin this is to note that Birmingham does have a history of church bombings…

Alabama senate votes to allow church to form own police force

Lawmakers on Tuesday voted 24-4 to allow Briarwood Presbyterian church in Birmingham to establish a law enforcement department.

The church says it needs its own police officers to keep its school as well as its more than 4,000 person congregation safe.

Alexandra Petri has a great summary of “Every story I have read about Trump supporters in the past week” in the Washington Post:

Next to her sits Linda Blarnik. Like the rusty hubcaps hanging on the wall behind her, she was made in America 50 years ago, back when this town made things, a time she still remembers fondly. She says she has had just enough of the “coastal elitist media who keep showing up to write mean things about my town and my life, like that thing just now where you said I was like a hubcap, yes you, stop writing I can see over your shoulder.” Mournfully a whistle blows behind her, the whistle of a train that does not stop in this America any longer.

Much as I appreciated the first couple articles in this genre, I’m getting pretty weary of them, and coming to see them as really pretty problematic.

First, they look like investigation, but they’re really condescension. Reporters who a year ago (and ten years ago) should have gone to rural Pennsylvania, or the former factory town in Ohio, or that corner diner in Kansas, are finally doing their jobs — or so it seems. But too easily the pieces fall into condescension, and turn into stories about people being hurt by the person they thought would save them. The stories could all be headlined,

Local Man’s Fate Feeds Our Confirmation Bias About His Political Stupidity

Second, they reduce politics to a narrow set of transactions: I vote for you, you give me a bridge contract, or a job, or deport my Spanish-speaking neighbors (but not the decent one who owns the factory, he’s okay.) Contrast this with the high idealism of Clinton supporters, casting their votes to shatter that final glass ceiling, and make America even greater.

Finally, they unintentionally reflect a world-view that is very, very Trumpian: they turn politics into the pursuit of personal gain, the satisfaction of tribal grievances, and the narrowing of a vision of America. These stories only work as irony (or tragedy) if the authors accept the premise that politics is about making great deals, not the expression of ideals.

But sometimes people vote to express their ideals, not to maximize their short-term interests. People with teenage sons in 1944 who voted for FDR probably weren’t hoping that their sons would be killed; but they recognized the dangers of fascism, and that its destruction was important. When people choose to make sacrifices for the long-term benefit of groups, or when they accept the burdens of doing things like defending their country, they’re not being saps.

And even if you enjoy stories of voters being hurt by the people they elected, you need to ask how the experience is going to affect their choices next time. Don’t take for granted that Linda Blarnik will switch parties next time; worry that her next vote will go to someone who promises to make Trump look like an scion of the Establishment.