State capacity as anti‑authoritarian strategy

Updated: 2026.04.22 3H ago 1 sources
Rebuild governmental delivery (roads, housing, utilities) not only to improve services but explicitly to undercut the appeal of strongman politics that thrives on the perception that the state is broken. This reframes investments in infrastructure as democratic resilience measures rather than only economic or technical projects. — If adopted, it shifts debates about infrastructure and regulation from technocratic tradeoffs to central elements of democratic strategy and electoral messaging.

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My Vision For A Post-Trump America
Francis Fukuyama 2026.04.22 100% relevant
Francis Fukuyama argues that Trump's rise was fed by a sense that government 'couldn't do anything well' and calls for an 'Abundance' program—housing and infrastructure—to demonstrate state competence.
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