Just a wad of totally unscientific, interwoven armchair theories: political cycles are much shorter than the relevant timescales for long-term infrastructure in

Just a wad of totally unscientific, interwoven armchair theories: political cycles are much shorter than the relevant timescales for long-term infrastructure investment; attention spans today are shorter than they used to be; the long slide of most of the "middle class" into financial insecurity means fewer people have the means and free time to educate themselves about and advance civic concerns; some political leaders in the U.S. have for decades undermined public support for public works, as well as public faith in government; American culture is now far more fractured and heterogeneous than it used to be, making coalitions between interest groups more difficult to form and maintain (recent trends in political and social thought, according to which individual and group identities are rendered increasingly explicit - along with the ability, courtesy of electronic communication, to associate almost exclusively with those who identify similarly - may exacerbate this)