The opening sentence of George Packer’s sobering new essay in The Atlantic: “We are living in an authoritarian state.” After detailing “the features of the modern authoritarian state,” he writes: “Every one of them exists today in this country.”

Packer devotes most of the essay on the point that democracy depends on “the ‘mores’ of its people … Tocqueville called their ‘habits of the heart.’ I don’t disagree with this. But Packer appears to despair of an institutional reform that would ameliorate the situation. In any event, he doesn’t discuss any except to rightly reject as fundamentally antithetical to democracy the idea entertained by Joe Rogan and Sam Altman of “an AI president” who “would be able to talk to everyone, understand them deeply, and then ‘optimize for the collective preferences of humanity or of citizens of the U.S.'”

I would amend Packer’s analysis by contending, as I have in my recent essay Why is American democracy in such peril?, that revitalization of American democracy requires a combination of cultural and institutional change. And I would further contend that, as difficult as institutional reform undoubtedly is (recall the defeat of various Ranked Choice Voting referenda last November), it is arguably easier than altering a political culture devastated by “Big Tech’s addictive algorithms” (as Packer puts it)–although at least one institutional change, repeal of section 230 immunity for social media companies, might make a difference on the cultural front.

In any event, Packer’s entire essay is well worth reading, especially for how it evocatively captures and summarizes current conditions.

[UPDATE: based on constructive feedback from an astute reader, I’ve adjusted my characterization of last November’s defeat of RCV ballot initiatives in multiple states.]