16 June

In countries like the US with very weak or often non-existent public administration of key parts of life, when things don’t work people pile onto the streets to protest. This is said to be democracy in action. Really it’s just a crowd of people. That isn’t democracy. Democracy is the public institutions that administer public life. It’s in the DNA of American public life to not ever understand this, to have two opposing forces, leaders and big crowds, with no institutions mediating between them.