Social Contract

Nasty, brutish, short. A few days back, while skimming comments on one of the more thoughtful “Make America China Again” pitches in favor of our nation’s favorite spy app, it occurred to me the most interesting question surfaced by this increasingly fierce debate over TikTok’s divestiture bill has nothing to do with China. Rather, the unspoken heart of the conversation seems mostly a conflict on the topic of America. Specifically, can our government be trusted to fairly write, read, and enforce the law? And if it can’t be trusted with so basic a function of governance, is it still legitimate?