638. Why Nothing Works: How Progressivism’s Split Led to Today's Governance Gridlock with Marc J. Dunkelman

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc · Apr 7, 2026 · 1h 9m

How is governance dysfunction linked to declining ‘middle-ring’ community ties? Marc J. Dunkelman is a fellow at Brown University and a fellow at the Searchlight Institute in Washington, D.C. Marc is also the author of two books, Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress—and How to Bring It Back and The Vanishing Neighbor: The Transformation of American Community. Greg and Marc discuss how U.S. progressivism has long been split between a Jeffersonian impulse to decentralize power and curb “bigness” and a Hamiltonian impulse to centralize authority in expert institutions. Marc explains how…