This is supposed to be about how people don't trust our leaders but it's so biased that I can't take it seriously. For instance, calling journalists "Maoists" is not only inaccurate but deliberately inflammatory. And a lot of the things that Baker claim led to distrust aren't even new things, and his sources are really iffy, such as Vivek Ramaswamy.
Then there are complaints against "wokeism." Honestly, I considered myself conservative until a few years ago, but this is nonsense. We won't build trust by lying about everyone who doesn't agree with us.
Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this

An uneven examination of the breakdown in trust in public institutions, through an explicitly partisan lens. In some ways, that's valuable - I've read a lot of introspection on "what's wrong with America" in the last few years, which has quite often had some degree of liberal slant (since, as Baker points out, the journalistic and academic establishments increasingly do skew liberal), so having something written with a conservative slant is a nice point of comparison. And it's especially interesting to see where things overlap -- hyperpartisanship (including political "sorting"), social media, income inequality (especially the enrichment of the super-1% Davos-going crowd) all get a share of the blame, just as they would in a left-of-center analysis. Even Donald Trump comes in for some blame, as you might expect from a traditional-Wall-Street-Republican kind of person -- though obviously a lot less than one would find in a liberal work (and in certain chapters, such as the one on loss of trust in the medical establishment, a lot less than I personally think he deserves, but to each their own).

Where it differs, of course, is that Baker's conclusion for the loss of trust in American institutions is largely that progressive ideology has taken them over and corrupted them. In particular, DEI initiatives seem to be a bugbear of Baker's, which he blames for a panoply of ills including the massive increase in college costs (which he seems to think is mostly because universities are employing hordes of expensive DEI officers). In this vein he quotes Vivek Ramaswamy several times in his chapter on American corporations, which very nearly made me quit reading the book -- Ramaswamy's showing in the current Republican primaries really takes the credibility of anyone currently citing him as an authority out at the knees.

Sometimes, the obsession with blaming "woke-ism" causes Baker to tie himself into knots -- for instance, remember how I said the Davos set comes in for some criticism earlier, as an example of bipartisanship? Well, it's not so simple - the corporate elites are losing Americans' trust not because of tax-dodging or class conflict, but because they're pushing their woke agenda of "climate justice" and "diversity, equity, and inclusion" (scare quotes Baker's) on the world. Later, he complains that elite universities are increasingly a club for just the children of the elite thanks to legacy admissions (aside: I don't think that's a recent phenomenon), but points out that thankfully the donor-class alumni are pushing back against their alma maters on the subject of cancel culture and freedom of speech on campus. So which is it: are the elites pushing their woke agenda, or fighting the woke agenda?

Ultimately I think my frustration with this book comes down to this: aside from the few generally-agreed-upon topics like hyperpartisanship, most of what he talks about are things that have made <i>conservatives</i> lose trust in leaders and institutions, and the causes are things that <i>progressives</i> are doing. The book's subtitle including the words "American" and "we" makes it seem like Baker intends to examine American society as a whole, not simply the conservative coalition. Perhaps this is no accident -- the loss of trust in institutions is, as I understand it, more of a phenomenon among conservatives, so there may just be more meat on the bone there (and the subtitle's "we" does just mean Baker and his fellow Republicans, not the whole population as I thought). But aside from the perfunctory shots at Trump's constant "falsehoods" (note: in Baker's wording, Trump tells "falsehoods", not "lies" -- the only ones he attributes that word to is medical professionals during Covid) the conservative establishment is apparently blameless for any loss in trust in institutions. And Baker's solutions largely come down to telling corporations (especially tech companies), the news media, colleges (and college students), and doctors "stop pushing all this woke shit and then people will trust you again."

It all comes down to a little bit of ... I don't know, lack of self-awareness? Baker rightly attacks hyperpartisanship for breaking down societal trust, but in the vast majority of the rest of the book makes hyper-partisan arguments blaming "the other side" for the rest of it. Makes for a frustrating read.