None of this debate is new. Republicans today are rehashing criticisms of the Intelligence Community that were proffered by the Left in the 1970s, in Watergate’s wake, when many Democrats viewed America’s security agencies as a profound threat to civil liberties and freedom itself. For decades after, the Left’s mythology had it that America’s spy agencies were misguided, nefarious, perhaps even evil. The Right didn’t think about the IC much, but conservative mythology imagined that our intelligence outfits were competent, staffed by hard-working patriots doing a tough job for freedom, quietly. All that’s changed since the Trump presidency is that many on the Right have taken up anti-IC arguments made by the Left a half-century ago.

But what if neither of these myths is exactly … true? What if the Intelligence Community is neither especially evil nor especially competent? What if America’s security agencies are mainly staffed by mediocre careerists, bland bureaucrats more interested in their pension, and currying favor with politicians, than in stealing secrets? What if the Intelligence Community is really just a highly secretive and extraordinarily expensive Department of Motor Vehicles?

That cold, harsh reality is pleasing to neither Left nor Right, but what if it’s the truth? The strange events of the last week, with a huge Chinese spy balloon flying across most of the United States before being shot down by the Air Force as it left our Eastern coastline, will not be soon forgotten by many Americans. This unprecedented event demonstrates that our very expensive national security state isn’t capable of doing its most basic job, namely the defense of our borders from foreign military incursions. When the global hegemon can’t monitor and defend its own airspace, is it really the hegemon anymore?