Building While Treading Water
P1.6: Democracy's Hardest Problem
I wrote this in December 2025, shortly after Rob Reiner's death. I'm publishing it now because the pattern it describes hasn't changed — just the specific triggering events. The timing references reflect when this was written, not when you're reading it.
I’ve recognized the problems for years. But I only started writing about them six weeks ago — demonstrating that the problems everyone thinks are unsolvable... aren’t.
Government shutdowns? Design flaw. The system literally allows itself to stop functioning. No serious organization would architect itself this way. I’ve shown the fix.
Campaign finance corruption? Design flaw. The current system forces politicians to spend 30+ hours a week fundraising, creating pay-to-play dynamics regardless of party. I’ve shown the architecture that removes it.
Policy whiplash that makes long-term planning impossible? Budget opacity that no citizen can penetrate? Congressional ethics that everyone accepts because “what’s the alternative?” Design flaws, all of them. With design fixes. I’ve shown the work.
These aren’t mysteries. They’re governance architecture problems with governance architecture solutions. The designs work.
So why don’t we have them?
This week, Rob Reiner and his wife Michele were murdered in their home. Their son has been arrested. This is horrific. A real family is gone.
And within hours, the president posted something deliberately provocative — suggesting Reiner died “due to the anger he caused” by opposing him. The outrage was instant. Podcasts discussed it. Social media exploded.
The revealing thing: he manages to trigger both tribes simultaneously. Liberals were outraged at the cruelty. But so were conservatives — Marjorie Taylor Greene called it “a family tragedy, not about politics.” Jenna Ellis called it “indefensible.” Thomas Massie asked if anyone could defend it.
And then OTHER conservatives defended it. And the fracturing spiraled.
Everyone outraged. Everyone activated. And the media — traditional outlets, social platforms, and the new wave of journalists who’ve launched their own podcasts and publications — couldn’t publish fast enough to keep up with it.
Like we haven’t seen this exact pattern for a decade.
While reading an early draft of this essay to my wife, I mentioned Reiner. She immediately jumped to Charlie Kirk. “Did you see how different the reaction was when he was assassinated?” And she went off about it — completely losing what I was reading to her, swept up in the comparison.
Did you think about Charlie Kirk when you read this? Did you start comparing the reactions?
Notice that reflex. That’s the mechanism I’m pointing at.
Sorting into teams. Comparing outrage levels. Looking for villains and hypocrisy. Not asking why the system keeps producing these moments, over and over, fueling anger and outrage, with nothing ever changing.
Later, my wife and I talked about what happened. I pointed out how she gets outraged — and then checks out. She’ll avoid the news for a while, try to focus on other things. But the next inflammatory event will filter through, setting her off again. Completely rational behavior. And completely trapped in the cycle.
I want to ask everyone stuck in this: aren’t you tired?
But I’ve realized the answer is no. Outrage fuels indefinitely. It’s self-sustaining. You can run on it forever.
Here’s the contrast that haunts me: Outrage spreads instantly. Millions engaged within hours. But governance architecture solutions — actual fixes for the problems everyone agrees are broken? Faint signal in overwhelming noise.
I’ve found them out there. People who sense something is structurally wrong. Who feel the bridge wobbling under their feet. They get SO close to seeing it — and then fall back into “we just need to vet candidates better” or “we need to vote harder” or “we just need the right person in office.”
They’re buried in learned helplessness. Buried in villain narratives. Trapped in cycles they can feel but can’t name.
The beams are buckling. Almost no one is looking at them.
Why? I kept asking myself this. Why do solutions not spread while outrage spreads instantly?
I even wrote about it. I understand it at some level. But it’s the question I can’t let go of.
This is the wall I kept hitting.
The Governance Design Agency would be a shortcut back to building. System 2 engaged by choice, not by catastrophe. Here’s what the Governance Design Agency (GDA) would do:
It would reduce the citizen burden. You wouldn’t need constant vigilance to keep democracy from collapsing. You could focus on your life.
It would make government meet people where they are. Readable budgets. Participation that doesn’t require becoming a policy expert. Feedback loops that actually work.
It would replace helpless acceptance with real accountability. External oversight. Transparent processes. Consequences that don’t depend on the goodwill of the people being overseen.
It would rebuild trust — not through messaging, but through function. Systems that work make people believe systems can work.
And here’s the key: if you build it once, it maintains itself. Better governance makes participation less costly. Less costly participation means more engagement. More engagement means better oversight. Better oversight means the system keeps working.
A virtuous cycle instead of a vicious one.
But you still need that initial critical mass. You still need enough people to override their biology once to demand it in the first place.
That’s the bootstrap problem.
There’s a framework that helps explain it.
Daniel Kahneman called it System 1 versus System 2. Mark Manson calls it “feeling brain” and “thinking brain.”
System 1 is fast, automatic, emotional — it’s what fires when you see a threat, when you feel attacked, when someone says something outrageous. It doesn’t deliberate. It reacts.
System 2 is slow, effortful, rational. It’s what you use to solve a math problem, weigh evidence, think through consequences. It takes energy. It feels like work.
Outrage speaks to us on a primal level. Tribal. Emotional. Immediate.
It’s not just psychological — it’s physiological. You feel it in your chest. Your heart rate increases. Adrenaline flows. Your body is preparing you to fight. That physical response makes it all the more potent.
And outrage gives you something that structural thinking can’t immediately provide:
Power. I can DO something. Share this. Comment on that. Vote against them. I’m not helpless.
Control. I understand who’s responsible. There’s a villain. The world makes sense.
Clarity. The problem is simple. The enemy is clear. No ambiguity, no nuance, no paralyzing complexity.
Think about what it feels like to be overwhelmed by political news. The endless stream. The contradictory information. The sense that everything is connected to everything else and you can’t possibly track it all. The walls closing in.
When you’re drowning in that complexity, clarity feels like oxygen.
Even if it’s hot, angry breath — at least you can breathe.
System 2 — the kind of thinking required to analyze governance architecture — doesn’t give you that relief. It’s uncomfortable. It requires holding multiple perspectives at once. It doesn’t give you a villain to blame or a hero to save you. It asks you to sit in uncertainty while you work through the problem.
Biology defaults to System 1. Always. We evolved that way for good reasons — quick reactions kept our ancestors alive. But what kept us alive on the savanna is now keeping us trapped in cycles that are killing our democracy.
Every platform has discovered this. Fox News, YouTube, Google, Meta, even Substack. Outrage is lucrative. Content that bypasses higher-level thinking and taps into tribal instincts gets engagement. Gets clicks. Gets revenue.
The algorithm isn’t neutral. It’s an accelerant for System 1 activation — and democracy can’t survive on System 1 alone.
Here’s what makes this practically inescapable: even the people trying to help you are trapped in it.
I got an email this morning from Paul Shattuck — a well-respected voice in the resistance space with a large following. Subject line: “You’re not failing. You’re being targeted.” He was selling a toolkit for dealing with political overwhelm.
That framing — “you’re being targeted” — is pure System 1 activation. Threat mode. Villain narrative. The help itself keeps you activated, keeps you in the trap.
This isn’t an accusation against Paul. He’s probably genuinely trying to help people cope. That’s what makes it evidence of how deep this goes. Even well-meaning, well-respected people we’ve looked to for guidance — they can’t see outside it either. They’re lost in it too.
We’ve become habituated to constant System 1 feeding. It’s virtually impossible to escape. Everything around us is designed to activate it.
But here’s what’s different about our moment in history:
In the 1700s, the 1800s — space existed. News traveled by horse, by ship. Days or weeks passed between events and awareness. There were natural gaps in the information flow. System 2 had room to breathe. You’d get outraged, and then... life would continue. You’d have dinner. Sleep. Work. Think.
The founders designed a system that assumed this information environment. They couldn’t conceive of ours — infinite outrage triggers in your pocket, breaking news every hour, the scroll that never ends, notifications pulling you back in every time you try to step away.
We didn’t just scale up the population. We eliminated the gaps. We removed the spaces where System 2 used to operate.
The bridge was designed for a world where people had time to think.
Every other problem I’ve analyzed has a design solution.
Congressional ethics is broken because the players make the rules for themselves? Create an external body — a Governance Design Agency — to design rules independent of the players. Structurally separate the conflict of interest.
That works because you can create something external to Congress.
But this problem is different.
The problem isn’t Congress. It’s us. Human biology rewards outrage and punishes governance architecture thinking. You can’t create an external body to override human psychology. There’s no structural separation possible from ourselves.
We build boats in dry docks. But right now, we’re in an ocean — surrounded by the parts to build a boat, with no dry dock in sight. We have to figure out how to build while treading water.
Here’s what I’ve come to believe: just as we individually battle between feeling brain and thinking brain, democracy is the collective version of that war. The same struggle, scaled to 330 million people. Across generations.
This is democracy’s battle with human nature.
And I’m not sure human nature loses. But I do know we can redesign the bridge to withstand the load.
Let me be direct about where I think we are.
We’re not approaching decline. We’re in it. The dysfunction isn’t a warning sign — it’s the thing itself. The strongman pitch is already in the living room. And as his power grows, so does the discontent.
I can’t solve the bootstrap problem. You can’t solve it.
Only we can solve it.
Here’s where I find hope: cooperation isn’t against human nature. We’re a social species. We evolved to work together. We didn’t just survive through collective action — we thrived. Changed the face of the earth. Literally.
But how far does that cooperation scale?
Dunbar’s number says we can really track about 150 people. Tribes. Villages. Teams. That’s in our wiring.
But 330 million people? Across generations who never met each other? Maintaining institutions none of us built and most of us don’t fully understand?
I don’t know. I genuinely don’t know.
The only way to find out is to try.
If you see the beams — help spread this. Not for me. For the “we” that might be forming.
Share the message. Step back from the outrage when you can.
And here’s something concrete: Next time you feel the outrage reflex, pause for ten seconds. That’s it. Just notice it. That’s your System 2 getting a foothold.
If you have ideas on how to bootstrap this — how to get enough of us to override our biology once to demand better — I genuinely want to hear them.
I’m still building. Still writing. In the hope that enough of us arrive.
Are you part of the “we”?
One more thing.
You may have felt something underneath everything I’ve said. A pattern. Let me name it.
There’s a cycle. I’ve read about it, heard about it. But it hit home in a new way while writing this — probably because I’ve watched the slide happen. In real time. Over the last couple decades.
People live under authoritarian rule. Discontent builds.
Revolution. System 2 engaged by necessity — you need to plan, coordinate, build coalitions — even as System 1 provides the fuel.
Build democracy. System 2 still engaged — you’re constructing something new.
“Good enough.” The immediate crisis passes. System 2 can finally relax.
Maintenance neglected. System 1 is back in charge. Who has time for the beams?
Gridlock and corruption. The beams are buckling, but System 1 doesn’t see structural problems. It sees villains.
Reach for the strongman. System 1 wants simple, clear, powerful. “I alone can fix it.”
Back to authoritarianism.
Eventually... discontent... and the cycle repeats.
Democracy requires sustained System 2 thinking. Biology defaults to System 1. The strongman promises System 1 satisfaction — power, clarity, control — even though history shows it leads right back to what we revolted against.
The cycle has always existed. But we’ve accelerated it. We’ve removed the friction that used to give democracies breathing room.
The Stoics, the Greeks — they mapped human nature thousands of years ago. We have all their wisdom at our fingertips. The entire internet. All of human knowledge.
And yet. Humans are still gonna human.
I vent into my Notes app all the time. That’s actually where The Statecraft Blueprint was born — frustrated observations that kept piling up. I’m not saying never get angry. Sometimes outrage is warranted.
But if that’s ALL we do, we’re trapped forever.
Maybe the best we can do is extend the cycle. Buy more time in the good phases. Build governance architecture designed for human nature rather than against it — systems that don’t require constant heroic vigilance to function.
Every generation that lives in functional democracy instead of authoritarianism is a win. We’re playing a long game.
I don’t know if the cycle can be broken. But I know what it looks like when you stop trying.