A great confusion has settled over America’s political scene. The country, for most, seems harder and harder to recognize. Our capacity for ceaseless revision has given way to longer trends that have locked us onto tracks whose fixity we never thought to anticipate. The confusion has been made more intractable by the self-delegitimation of the academy and the press, which are selectively allergic to context and historically shallow, respectively.
As Theta Skocpol noticed, over the course of the 20th century America went from membership civics to managerial civics. Membership civics involved civil society groups with thick social ties—the Knights of Columbus, the Elk’s Lodge, and so on. Even presidential candidates had to win them over. But as America became more disaffiliated, membership...