Matt Yglesias, given to huge overreactions to transient situations, may have a point in his apocalyptically titled Vox piece “American Democracy Is Doomed.” Our system is deeply flawed. But it’s not, as Yglesias argues, because we’re a very polarized people whose President, whether Democrat or Republican, has to do an end-around of Congress to get anything accomplished. It’s because of a system of representation that isn’t truly representative. Gerrymandering has made for a congressional body largely out of step with the majority of the American public. The rule of two Senators per state regardless of population was not a good idea. The election of a President by virtue of Electoral vote rather than Popular one is a mistake (though one soon likely to be remedied.) We’ve erred in being too concerned with making sure land mass and regions are empowered at the expense of citizens. And, of course, having no caps on the amount of money an individual or group can pour into the political process causes serious distrust. I don’t think most of these issues are solvable from within; the American people will have to exert great pressure from outside for change to happen. Maybe that will only occur after an implosion or maybe not. Yglesias’ opening:

America’s constitutional democracy is going to collapse.

Some day — not tomorrow, not next year, but probably sometime before runaway climate change forces us to seek a new life in outer-space colonies — there is going to be a collapse of the legal and political order and its replacement by something else. If we’re lucky, it won’t be violent. If we’re very lucky, it will lead us to tackle the underlying problems and result in a better, more robust, political system. If we’re less lucky, well, then, something worse will happen.

Very few people agree with me about this, of course. When I say it, people generally think that I’m kidding. America is the richest, most successful country on earth. The basic structure of its government has survived contested elections and Great Depressions and civil rights movements and world wars and terrorist attacks and global pandemics. People figure that whatever political problems it might have will prove transient — just as happened before.

But voiced in another register, my outlandish thesis is actually the conventional wisdom in the United States. Back when George W. Bush was president and I was working at a liberal magazine, there was a very serious discussion in an editorial meeting about the fact that the United States was now exhibiting 11 of the 13 telltale signs of a fascist dictatorship. The idea that Bush was shredding the Constitution and trampling on congressional prerogatives was commonplace. When Obama took office, the partisan valence of the complaints shifted, but their basic tenor didn’t. Conservative pundits — not the craziest, zaniest ones on talk radio, but the most serious and well-regarded — compare Obama’s immigration moves to the actions of a Latin-American military dictator.

In the center, of course, it’s an article of faith that when right and left talk like this they’re simply both wrong. These are nothing but the overheated squeals of partisans and ideologues.

At the same time, when the center isn’t complaining about the excessively vociferous complaints of the out-party of the day, it tends to be in full-blown panic about the state of American politics. And yet despite the popularity of alarmist rhetoric, few people act like they’re actually alarmed. Accusations that Barack Obama or John Boehner or any other individual politician is failing as a leader are flung, and then abandoned when the next issue arises. In practice, the feeling seems to be that salvation is just one election away. Hillary Clinton even told Kara Swisher recently that her agenda if she runs for president is to end partisan gridlock.

It’s not going to work.•