Q, Please explain why the right wing in America is trying to dismantle its institutions, and what the New American Dream should be,
A. (ChatGPT) This is one of the central political questions of our era, and it deserves a careful answer because there isn’t a single motive or a single “right wing.” Different factions are pursuing different goals that sometimes reinforce one another.
Broadly speaking, there are four overlapping impulses.
First, a crisis of trust. Many conservatives have come to believe that America’s major institutions—universities, the federal bureaucracy, mainstream media, public health agencies, large foundations, and even some corporations—are no longer politically neutral. They see these institutions as dominated by progressive cultural values and increasingly insulated from democratic accountability. From this perspective, dismantling or weakening institutions is not vandalism but an attempt to restore self-government.
Second, populist nationalism. Since the late twentieth century, globalization produced enormous wealth but also hollowed out many industrial towns, weakened labor, and concentrated economic opportunity in a handful of metropolitan regions. Many voters concluded that political and economic elites benefited while ordinary communities declined. This has fueled a politics that favors national sovereignty over international institutions and local production over global supply chains.
Third, libertarian skepticism of government. Another strand has long argued that federal institutions naturally accumulate power, become inefficient, and crowd out private initiative, markets, families, churches, and local communities. The goal here is not necessarily chaos but a return to a smaller state.
Fourth, revolutionary politics. More recently, some thinkers on the right have come to believe that existing institutions cannot simply be reformed because they embody a fundamentally different worldview. If you believe an institution is irredeemably captured, replacing it appears more rational than gradually reforming it.
There is an irony here.
Modern civilization depends on institutions. Scientific research, financial systems, transportation, water supplies, courts, and public health all require durable organizations. Destroying institutions without having functional replacements creates instability.
The deeper question, then, is not whether institutions should exist, but what kind of institutions we need.
That leads naturally to your second question.
What should the New American Dream be?
I suspect the old American Dream—ever-expanding consumption, suburban isolation, and upward mobility measured primarily by income—is nearing its limits. It depended on abundant fossil energy, cheap land, continuous economic growth, and ecological systems that could absorb increasing waste. Those assumptions are becoming less reliable.
But I also think “small-town self-sufficiency” captures only part of the answer.
Historically, very few towns have ever been truly self-sufficient. Even nineteenth-century farming communities depended on regional trade, specialized knowledge, and wider markets. Today, complete local self-sufficiency would be both difficult and, in many areas, undesirable.
A more realistic vision might be resilient interdependence.
Imagine communities that:
- produce more of their own food and energy
- restore nearby watersheds and ecosystems
- support local businesses and artisans
- maintain strong civic organizations
- educate children partly through place-based learning
- remain connected to regional, national, and global networks of knowledge, trade, and culture
That isn’t isolation. It’s reducing unnecessary dependence while increasing local capacity.
From what I know of your own work on Possible Planet, this resembles what you’ve called inhabitation: people becoming deeply rooted in the places they live while participating in broader networks of learning and cooperation.
The new dream might therefore shift from independence to belonging.
Instead of asking:
“How can I become wealthier than everyone around me?”
it asks:
“How can my family help make this place healthier, more beautiful, and more resilient over generations?”
Success would no longer be measured solely by GDP or property values but also by the health of soils, rivers, neighborhoods, civic trust, biodiversity, and the opportunities available to future generations.
This vision doesn’t fit neatly into today’s left-right divide.
The political right contributes valuable ideas about local responsibility, family, voluntary associations, entrepreneurship, and skepticism toward centralized power.
The political left contributes important insights about ecological limits, social inclusion, public investment, scientific knowledge, and protecting common goods.
A durable American renewal would likely require synthesizing the strongest elements of both traditions while discarding their excesses: avoiding both bureaucratic overcentralization and reflexive institutional destruction.
If there is a “New American Dream” that could unite rather than divide, I think it is something like this:
To become good ancestors by building places that are ecologically regenerative, economically productive, culturally meaningful, and democratically self-governing—communities capable of thriving within the living systems that sustain them.
That strikes me as a more enduring aspiration than either unlimited consumption or complete local self-sufficiency. It recognizes that Americans have always valued both freedom and community; the challenge for this century is to redesign our institutions so those values reinforce one another rather than pulling apart.