Seasons greetings! This is the first full year for “Can We Still Govern?” and so I decided to share both the most-read pieces this year, and the ones that I valued the most for personal reasons.

All of these pieces have in common the goal of providing a broader perspective and deeper understanding to our politics and policy, applying my knowledge as a researcher of governance.

If you missed any of these, it’s a chance to catch up. Please share with others who have not seen it. And consider subscribing!

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Reader picks - the most read pieces in 2022:

This was the year that alleging your political enemies were “groomers” or soft on pedos went from the margins to the mainstream. It represents an effort to cater to the sizable QAnon constituency.

Can We Still Govern?

The QAnoning of our political discourse

Earlier this week Republican Senator Josh Hawley, wrote a widely viewed thread about President Biden’s nominees to the Supreme Court, Ketanji Brown Jackson. The central theme was that Jackson was too sympathetic to sex offenders. Factcheckers debunked…

a year ago · 12 likes · Don Moynihan

The actions of an obscure Wisconsin political appointee who refuses to leave his position long after his term has ended tell us a lot about how GOP democratic backsliding goes beyond the election deniers.

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The rot runs deeper

The January 6th hearings have illustrated the deep threats to American democracy such that only the most die-hard Trumpists can deny them. One categorical error we cannot make is assuming the threats to democracy are purely, or even primarily, a reflection of Trump’s authoritarian tendencies. The more disturbing reality is that the instinct to subvert d…

9 months ago · 26 likes · 3 comments · Don Moynihan

There has been much hand-wringing about the decline of US administrative capacity. There is something to it, but some of the reasons might be different from what has been discussed, which has implications for rebuilding capacity.

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Why is American administrative capacity in decline?

Ezra Klein recently wrote a provocative and thoughtful piece about administrative capacity in the modern American state. The key claim is summarized here: I’ve spent most of my adult life trawling think tank reports to better understand how to solve problems. When I go looking for ideas on how to build state capacity on the left, I don’t find much. The…

10 months ago · 27 likes · Don Moynihan

Anti-abortion conservatives suddenly became fans of European abortion policies after the Dobbs decision. I explain why the comparisons between European and American abortion policies don’t make a lot of sense without considering lots of factors beyond cut-off dates.
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Debunking the false comparisons between European and American abortion policies
With the Dobbs decision, a curious thing has happened. I’m not talking about SCOTUS stripping away a previously established a constitutional right, which is more deeply disturbing than curious. I’m talking the sudden enthusiasm among Conservatives to talk about European abortion policy…
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9 months ago · 37 likes · Don Moynihan

Most of my writing is basically a mix of opinion and policy explainers. Here, I actually did a little internet sleuthing to debunk a viral fake story, and discovered the world of “pink slime” zombie journalism that is replacing local media. An official from the school that was targeted also reached out to say that they valued the pushback, which made me very happy.

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Anatomy of a fake

This is the tale of a fake news story, widely shared by a lot of smart people who so badly wanted for it to be true that they didn’t care that it wasn’t. It is also the tale of the decline of local news in America, the wave of pink slime that is replacing it, feeding destructive partisan narratives about public institutions…

10 months ago · 48 likes · 43 comments · Don Moynihan

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Personal favorites in no particular order:

The show Andor was great, and a fun way to write about bureaucracy in a totalitarian state.

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The administrative state of the Empire

*Many spoilers ahead* Throughout the Star Wars movie universe, the basic administrative details of how a galactic empire is run is hinted at but never engaged with. Given the obsessive attention to Star Wars, this has been one of the weak spots of the franchise. For example, characters in the movie…

4 months ago · 32 likes · 9 comments · Don Moynihan

This pair are bookends of sort. The first warned about problems with the student loan forgiveness the Department of Education had undertaken, which I’m told was shared by people in the Department. The second was a nod to a job well done, something we don’t do enough, once the Biden administration had released a loan forgiveness process that was a model of administrative simplicity. Now we wait for the courts to decide if it is legal.

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Student loan forgiveness could become the next Obamacare website

If the Affordable Care Act is the greatest policy legacy of President Obama, the rollout of the Healthcare.gov was his greatest administrative failure. The site was so dysfunctional it became a late-night comedy punchline. It also led to enormous emergency investments to fix the problem, which had some long-term benefits like the creation of the US Digi…

10 months ago · 7 likes · 1 comment · Don Moynihan

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What I wrote in the NYT about student debt forgiveness

With Pam Herd, I wrote about the Biden student loan relief process in the New York Times this weekend. You can read an ungated version of the article here and the text of the piece is below the graphic, which I love. After the article, I offer some thoughts about what happens next…

5 months ago · 17 likes · 2 comments · Don Moynihan

I’ve written a lot about Schedule F, a Trump era executive order that I think represents an existential threat to competent public service and executive branch accountability. While the House passed a bill to close the loophole that allows it to exist, the Senate failed to pass such language in the lame duck session. This means that a GOP President in 2024 will likely use this tool.

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What you need to know about Schedule F

Jonathan Swann’s two-part investigative report into an obscure executive order to convert career officials into political appointees has made Schedule F something that the national media is, belatedly, paying attention to. I’ve been focused on this topic for a couple of years now, warning about the dangers of a tool like Schedule F under a populist leade…

8 months ago · 6 likes · Don Moynihan

Didn’t you hear? I’m a travel writer now. Just now a very good one. Take a couple of moments to relive my trip through Italy.

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My disastrous entry into travel writing

There he is, swanning around, distinguished, fit, resplendent in his tailored outfits, speaking Italian with the locals, drinking fine wine and eating great food. Making it all look effortless. It’s a lie. When you get to Italy, it will be overcrowded. You probably don’t speak Italian, or pass as a local due t…

8 months ago · 12 likes · 2 comments · Don Moynihan

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The best of "Can We Still Govern?" from 2022