In observance of Independence Day, the next edition of the Hoover Daily Report will be published on Monday, July 7th.
Today, Chester E. Finn, Jr., reflects on the deeper meaning of the Fourth of July and urges readers to lean in to the hopeful possibility of civic renewal; Scott Atlas analyzes the public’s decline in trust in public health authorities and outlines reforms, as well as virtues, necessary to prevent the repetition of policy failures from the COVID-19 pandemic; and Bill Whalen reviews the state of California politics at the year’s midpoint, raising key questions about the state’s finances and future elected leadership.
Revitalizing American Institutions
“The Fourth of July this year—tomorrow, remember?—is far more than a one-shot holiday with fireworks and hot dogs,” writes Senior Fellow Chester E. Finn, Jr., at the Flypaper blog. “It’s the kickoff of a year in which many Americans will focus on the origins, meaning, and mission of the Declaration of Independence as we prepare to observe its 250th anniversary—its semiquincentennial, if you insist—twelve months from tomorrow.” Finn uses the occasion to consider “reflective patriotism” in the mold of Alexis de Tocqueville. This type of love of country is “grounded in thoughtful appreciation of the benefits of living in a constitutional democracy that honors life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, along with reflection on what’s been achieved and what’s not yet right.” Finn exhorts his readers to remember that tomorrow’s holiday “isn’t just a moment in time, a day of celebration. It also carries hope of rekindling. But now is when we have to collect the fuel.” Read more here.
In an essay for The New Criterion based on remarks delivered at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship forum in London back in February, Senior Fellow Scott Atlas examines the reasons for the marked decline of public trust in institutions during recent years. He argues that the COVID-19 pandemic “fully exposed massive, across-the-board institutional failure, including the shocking reality of overt censorship, the loss of freedoms, and the frank violation of human rights—in the United States of America, a country explicitly founded on a commitment to freedom.” In the piece, Atlas reviews key failures in the public health and medical establishment during the pandemic that he says must be addressed head-on before trust in these institutions can be restored. Atlas makes the case that ultimately, individuals exercising courage will be the key restraint on future attempts to restrict personal freedom and censor unpopular ideas. Advancing a vision of a well-functioning and trustworthy public health system, he writes, “Ideological gatekeeping in public discourse has no place in free societies, especially in science and health.” Read more here.
Empowering State and Local Government
Writing at California on Your Mind, Distinguished Policy Fellow Bill Whalen offers a mid-year assessment of political developments in the Golden State. He begins by noting the four distinct “evolutions” of Governor Gavin Newsom so far this year: from calling a special session of the state legislature ahead of President Trump’s inauguration, to cross-partisan podcasting, to taking on “the revamped role of California’s governor as the spearhead of anti-Trump resistance.” Whalen also discusses a longstanding but currently salient state budgetary dynamic wherein Sacramento is overreliant “on money materializing out of nowhere in the form of capital gains tax payments,” leaving the state government “at the mercy of stock, real estate, and IPO markets.” Whalen leaves readers with key unknowns to keep an eye on in the months ahead: “Will the former vice president run? Will California get its financial act together? Can a working stiff afford to go to Dodger Stadium?” Read more here.
Revitalizing History
Senior Fellow Niall Ferguson joins Distinguished Visiting Fellow Andrew Roberts on the latest episode of Secrets of Statecraft to discuss the best way to study and consider history. They entertain the worth of applied history and analyze the value of considering counterfactuals involving significant turning points in history—something Ferguson says all good history undergraduates of his generation were told they were not ever supposed to do. They also unpack the nature of the study of history, remembering that events are not predetermined, outcomes of various events are numerous and wide-ranging, and one shouldn’t think the course of history is predictable and steady like the plot of a well-organized novel. “You’ll actually learn more about history from watching football than going and reading fiction,” Ferguson says. Listen here.
Getting to Know the GoodFellows
How does a promising young scholar go from dreams of designing glider planes to the study of physics and then on to a celebrated career as one of the world’s foremost monetary economists? In a “solo” installment of GoodFellows, John H. Cochrane—Hoover’s Rose-Marie and Jack Anderson Senior Fellow and coauthor of the newly released Crisis Cycle: Challenges, Evolution, and Future of the Euro—discusses his academic journey, his mentors, and the fellow economists who’ve inspired him along the way. He also shares his ongoing concerns with inflation and debt, as well as his interest in penning a follow-up to Milton and Rose Friedman’s Free to Choose. Later, Cochrane takes part in a “Herbert Hoover Questionnaire,” in which he details proper airplane etiquette (“If you occupy the window seat, raise the shade!”), describes the virtues of his beloved family dog, and extols the culinary skills of his wife (author Elizabeth Fama, who makes a cameo appearance at the show’s end for the couple’s thirty-ninth wedding anniversary). Watch or listen here.
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