Best of "Can We Still Govern?" 2025: Readers Picks
The most-read stories of the year
As another year comes to a close, it’s time to share some highlights from my blog/newsletter. Thanks to everyone who subscribes, and especially paid subscribers, which are never expected but always welcome. Reminder: this December, I will match any new paid subscriptions to Can We Still Govern? with an equivalent gift to Give Directly, so consider subscribing!
In this piece (lets call it Volume I), I’m sharing the five most-read pieces from last year in reverse order. A central theme of this year’s most popular articles was the assault on state capacity that came with Trump’s return to office. The fifth-most read piece came from an NIH insider who explained how budget rules were being weaponized to undermine the agency. It is a reminder about how the administrative details really matter.
The fourth most-read piece combined a commentary that Pam Herd and I wrote in Science about the politicization of scientific agencies, as well as a call for people to make a public comment about the politicization of the government more generally. More than 40,000 submitted comments, overwhelmingly opposed to the change. People are looking for meaningful ways to register that they do not like what is happening to their government.
Back in March I wrote about the encroaching sense of threat against speech disfavored by the President: “The right to say what we want, to choose our topics of study, is essentially American. But we don’t live in America any longer. The truth is, we live in a foreign country now.” Things have only gotten worse since then.
People really hate Elon Musk. And so people were pretty excited when he overestimated his political skills to pour millions into a Wisconsin election, including a potentially illegal lottery scheme to incentivize voters, only to lose very badly. The election, which took place at the start of April, was an early and important benchmark that Musk, DOGE, and the Trump administration more broadly had reached the end of whatever honeymoon period they enjoyed.
The most read piece of last year asked a hard question — can we consider American to be a functioning democracy — and offers a hard answer: no. Trump is following a standard pattern of other authoritarians: control the bureaucracy, military, internal security, legal system, civil society, higher education and election administration. Two points. First, Trump has moved more quickly through the checklist than authoritarians in other countries. Second, because states run elections, he has made the least progress with controlling how we vote, but that also means its his next target.
I initially pitched this piece to a traditional legacy outlet, and they passed on it. This is one reason I am glad this blog exists. Even if I miss the occasional typo, there is incredible value to be able to communicate, unfiltered, to readers who care about the state of our government and democracy.
Writing it is not my day job, which is co-directing a research lab about how to improve government and teaching the next generation of public servants. But it is an important moment for someone who studies public administration to explain what is going on, which increasingly feels like charting uncharted and shark-infested waters.
Watch out for volume II of my 2025 highlights tomorrow, which will feature personal favorites. If you want to look back to previous years, here you go:
Thank for this amazing article. We need to rid ourselves of authoritarianism’s tyranny, especially in our country. Happy New Year.
Really appreciate this roundup, especially the fact that the authoritarian checklist was the most-read piece. The intersting thing is how that article functions almost as a diagnostic tool rather than just commentary. I've been using it in converations with folks who insist things aren't that bad, and the checklist format makes institutional decay much harder to dismiss. What maybe gets overlooked is that the speed issue cuts both ways though. Rapid authoritarian moves create visible resistance points, whereas gradual erosion over decades (like Hungary) often normalizes each step before the next. The fact that Schedule F mobilized 40k+ comments suggests there's still institutional antibodies worth activating.