American Breakdown: Why We No Longer Trust Our Leaders and Institutions and How We Can Rebuild Confidence

by Gerard Baker

Overview

From the former editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal, a must-read account of how America suffers from a “trust deficit” that has weakened its cornerstone institutions and divided our society.
 
AMERICAN BREAKDOWN dissects how, in the space of a generation, the pillars that sustained the once-dominant superpower have been dangerously eroded. From government to business, from media to medicine—the strength and security of the American experiment have been weakened by a widening gap between the elites who control these institutions and the public.

At the root of this breakdown is a precipitous fall in Americans’ trust in their political, business and cultural leaders. As Baker writes, “This pathology of distrust across American society is eating the country away from the inside.” Millions of Americans say they have little faith in their country's future, and no longer seem to have trust in their leaders, in their important social and civil institutions, even in their common values and ideals, or ultimately in each other.

America in fact hasn’t failed. Americans have been failed—misled by inept and deceitful political leaders, deserted by predatory and cynical corporate chiefs, and, above all, betrayed by a cultural elite that has exploited the very freedom this country provided in order to destroy it.

AMERICAN BREAKDOWN is a deep analysis and thought-provoking account that explores the ways in which Americans have been let down and offers solutions for how we rebuild trust and reclaim purpose for a better future.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538705704
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	09/12/2023
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	613,961
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Gerard Baker was Editor in Chief of the Wall Street Journal between 2013 and 2018. He is now the Journal’s Editor at Large, writing the weekly “Free Expression” column for the paper and hosting a podcast of the same name. He also writes a weekly column for the Times of London, is a regular commentator on Fox News, and appears on a range of national and international media. In a career in journalism that spans more than three decades he has also worked for the BBC and the Financial Times.

Editorial Reviews

08/07/2023

Wall Street Journal editor-at-large Baker argues in this uneven debut that the multiple crises afflicting America today all stem from a loss of trust. Asserting that “the last twenty years have been among the most dispiriting periods in the relatively short history of the United States,” Baker attributes this state of affairs to a common, corrosive factor: Americans have lost trust in “their leaders, in their important social and civil institutions, even in their common values and ideals, or ultimately in one another.” He blames the usual suspects: namely the misguided and mismanaged wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the lack of genuine accountability for the 2008 financial collapse, failures to accept election results, mixed messaging in response to Covid-19, biased media, and corporate greed. But Baker’s review of the facts is selective; he cites the Bible to disprove climate change. (“Weather events have been with us for some time.... The Bible is full of them.”) He is also less than scrupulous about being consistent; allegations that Trump colluded with Russia are both “mainly false” and “false.” This is a missed opportunity for Baker, a media leader, to begin to restore trust for Americans by finding common ground after a balanced diagnosis of current ills. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

2023-07-05
The former editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal adds to the why-American-society-is-in-such-a-mess genre.

Baker, now a WSJ editor at large and a regular commentator on Fox News, maintains that he is nonpartisan and that “there is plenty of blame to go around,” but readers will quickly discover that he is an old-school conservative. Like many traditional conservatives, the author deplores Donald Trump and his followers. However, if forced to choose between a die-hard, right-wing conspiracy theorist and a conventional liberal, he would throw up his hands in despair. Baker blames much of our current crisis on “the rapid advance in progressive ideologies in American institutions in the last thirty years or so.” Perhaps his greatest anger is directed at his own profession, journalism, which—with the exception of his WSJ—has dropped all pretense of objectivity. “Taking their cue from Karl Marx,” news organizations refuse to merely report the world but work actively to change it. Baker also excoriates American universities, a conservative bugbear long dominated by liberals who shout down guest speakers and harass nonconformist professors. Least effective is the author’s chapter on the medical profession, an uncomfortably Trumpian attack on pandemic-era public health measures. He mostly denounces quarantines as hysterical fearmongering, and he maintains that vaccines, although modestly effective, have been oversold and should be voluntary. Since he blames America’s “cultural revolution” on a powerful, isolated cabal and opposes violence, his conclusion is short on specifics. He places his trust in the blameless, salt-of-the-earth American citizenry who “believe in traditional American values and ideals, put American…interests ahead of global concerns, and favor tough immigration restrictions and the reassertion of American sovereignty.” Although Baker believes in climate change, he also argues that the matter is overblown and that “climate extremism” is the new global religion, “a temporal canon, with its own moral and doctrinal heft.”

A polemic that will arouse conservatives and irritate liberals.

Kirkus Reviews

America in fact hasn’t failed. Americans have been failed—by lying politicians, phony executives, woke academics, and activist scientists. That's the argument of Gerry Baker’s AMERICAN BREAKDOWN, an immigrant journalist’s passionate J’accuse against this country’s elites. It’s a book about two decades of declining public trust in just about every institution. But it has a hopeful message. The extremists in the culture war have fewer followers than social media might suggest. Like past periods of polarization and distrust, this breakdown, too, shall pass.”—Niall Ferguson, Milbank Family Senior Fellow, the Hoover Institution, Stanford, and author of Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe

“Baker masterfully unpacks Americans’ growing distrust in their institutions with a compelling breakdown of the many ways societal leaders have destroyed their credibility—and the continued threat from today’s Davos Men and Little Maoists. AMERICAN BREAKDOWN makes the persuasive case that distrust is at the heart of so much U.S. dysfunction, even as it offers a critical guide to how we rebuild that social capital.”—Kimberley Strassel, Wall Street Journal columnist and author of The Biden Malaise

“Well, this is the one I’ve been waiting for: a truly fresh and compelling account of what’s gone wrong in America over the past twenty years from someone who knows what he’s talking about when it comes to the failures of the people in charge—because he’s seen it from the inside, as editor of the Wall Street Journal and now the masterful chronicler of the arrogance, hubris, and sheer incompetence of our ruling class. Baker vividly explains how collapsing trust in the key institutions of American life is at the root of the nation’s political and social turbulence. Only when the elites who have led the country astray through ideological extremism and reckless mismanagement acknowledge the vast gulf between themselves and the people can trust be restored. If you want to understand how America recovers its soul, you need this book. Not least because it’s also a brilliant read.”—Steve Hilton, Fox News contributor

From the Publisher

Baker masterfully unpacks Americans’ growing distrust in their institutions with a compelling breakdown of the many ways societal leaders have destroyed their credibility—and the continued threat from today’s Davos Men and Little Maoists. AMERICAN BREAKDOWN makes the persuasive case that distrust is at the heart of so much U.S. dysfunction, even as it offers a critical guide to how we rebuild that social capital.

Wall Street Journal columnist and author of The Bi Kimberley Strassel

America in fact hasn’t failed. Americans have been failed—by lying politicians, phony executives, woke academics, and activist scientists. That's the argument of Gerry Baker’s AMERICAN BREAKDOWN, an immigrant journalist’s passionate J’accuse against this country’s elites. It’s a book about two decades of declining public trust in just about every institution. But it has a hopeful message. The extremists in the culture war have fewer followers than social media might suggest. Like past periods of polarization and distrust, this breakdown, too, shall pass.

Niall Ferguson

Well, this is the one I’ve been waiting for: a truly fresh and compelling account of what’s gone wrong in America over the past twenty years from someone who knows what he’s talking about when it comes to the failures of the people in charge—because he’s seen it from the inside, as editor of the Wall Street Journal and now the masterful chronicler of the arrogance, hubris, and sheer incompetence of our ruling class. Baker vividly explains how collapsing trust in the key institutions of American life is at the root of the nation’s political and social turbulence. Only when the elites who have led the country astray through ideological extremism and reckless mismanagement acknowledge the vast gulf between themselves and the people can trust be restored. If you want to understand how America recovers its soul, you need this book. Not least because it’s also a brilliant read.

Fox News contributor Steve Hilton

Baker masterfully unpacks Americans’ growing distrust in their institutions with a compelling breakdown of the many ways societal leaders have destroyed their credibility—and the continued threat from today’s Davos Men and Little Maoists. AMERICAN BREAKDOWN makes the persuasive case that distrust is at the heart of so much U.S. dysfunction, even as it offers a critical guide to how we rebuild that social capital.

WSJ columnist and author of The Biden Malaise Kimberley Strassel