An old magazine issue from 2014, focused on American decay and dysfunction, seems eerily relevant today, suggesting these issues predate current political figures.

While cleaning my basement, I found an old copy of Foreign Affairs dated September/October 2014. If you didn’t look at the publication date but only its table of contents, you would have thought it was a recent edition. Titled “See America: Land of Decay & Dysfunction”, the edition’s front cover is a painting of a crumbling Capitol Building that houses the United States Congress. Keep in mind we are talking about the second year of the second term of Barack Obama, whose presidency is now fondly....