A big problem for trust in government is that high-quality governance is usually invisible. When the various agencies designed to protect the American people from all manner of threats are working perfectly, most potential disasters are detected and prevented before they happen. A lot of highly trained government workers do diligent and difficult work for little pay and less recognition, heading off crisis after crisis, and the ignorant swing-voting layman assumes that all his tax dollars are being squandered.

So one hopes that the voting public is learning a hard—or I should say watery—lesson about how important good government is, by way of the manifold consequences of Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Robert Kennedy hacking away at American state capacity. The latest consequence can be heard in the groaning emanating from thousands of bathrooms across the country: the worst cyclosporiasis outbreak in American history. It deserves a name, so I’m calling it the MAHA Trots.