In the last article, I suggested that there is a vision for America beginning to coalesce.

Here is the idea in a nutshell (I will admit to using AI to help me find the words for something I’ve been actively researching for six years!)

“Humanity repeatedly discovers the same principles for flourishing, even when civilizations are separated by thousands of years, different cultures, different religions and different political systems.”

Across history, people have described this remarkable convergence of ideas in different ways. In my last article, I said that it boils down to the idea that -

The defining characteristic of humanity is not perfection. It is in our extraordinary capacity to learn, reason and continually become better!

Sometimes the vision is given a complicated name, such as “Moral Realism”. I like the term “Potentialism” to describe the Vision which is given so many names. But “Moral Realism” is worth a little explanation.

In his July 5 article, in the Boston Globe Opinion section, Stephen Michener writes how the Founders believed the American experiment in democracy depended upon our having this shared vision - which he describes as “Moral Realism”.

Michener defines Moral Realism as follows:

“The concept underpinning the Declaration of Independence is known as moral realism, which is central to how we think as a nation and to our way of life. Moral realism says that right and wrong, just and unjust, moral and immoral, are not the whimsical products of power or culture but are discoverable through reason and science. In the same way that Galileo and Newton discovered physical laws and principles about the natural world—for example, that the earth is round—so too did the Founders purport to discover principles about human nature that really do exist.”

In short, Moral Realism says that people can be mistaken about morality, just as they can be mistaken about history or science. Just as we eventually discovered through reason and experience that the earth is round rather than flat, there are certain truths about the human condition that are not a matter of opinion.

This means two things.

First, the best news - there is objective reality! What a relief by the way…

Secondly, and on a more serious note:

The application of these truths to our lives has always led to our advancement both as individuals and as a collective society.

Truly amazing stuff but it even gets better! The sources of upheaval never really change, but our ability to understand them and overcome them does. Think about our present cultural and political circumstances as a prime example. We are in the midst of overcoming one of the strangest periods of political polarization in the nation’s history, with poor leadership—on both sides pitting us against each other - but we are in fact overcoming these poor leaders, and we are working harder than every before, to find our common community and to fight against the ingredients that hold us back from living according to our full potential.

We are actually in the midst of riding our naturally occurring shared vision back toward greater reasonableness—not only in our national politics, but also in our schools, our communities, and our everyday lives.

If Americans can recognize that shared vision, which is being called “Potentialism”, and rally around it, our belief in human potential could help produce our Next Giant Leap Forward as a human race.

If you agree with this article, please let me know in the comments. If you don’t, please also let me know. Thank you. Glenn Cort

For you regular readers, I’m sorry I’ve been away for a while dealing with some family matters. Some joyous (my oldest and only daughter’s wedding) and some melancholy (situating my 93-year-old mother-in-law in a new long-term care home).

When I last left you, we had just given names to the various cultural systems and human weaknesses that hold us back. We looked at all of the factors which got us here - death by 1000 cuts style! That was fun, eh? Then we turned our sights to

Thank Goodness. . . That article was a LOT more fun to write! And thanks for your positive comments!

This article completes that series, and places us on a new trajectory, building on the theme of how and why we can be confident of better times ahead!

We can and should be confident in better times ahead because, in times of cultural turbulence, there is a vision for America that always finds its way back to us.

And this time, just as in times before, it has come back to us with more clarity and strength than ever before. When we need it, we seem to find it. Hint: it’s hardwired into us.

And it’s no wonder that its back in the news today. It’s the one thing that makes everything work if we are paying attention. And when we have paid attention, it has never failed to bring us together, help us see more eye to eye, disagree better, and advance as individuals and as a society, regardless of our differences.

Some have lost their natural ability to see it (which is sad indeed) but for the majority of us, it feels very natural. And for the great majority of us who have the familiar, innate sense of “the vision,” we have good and practical reasons to envision a total breakthrough—the type we only dream about…

So, what is this magic elixir I speak of?

It’s been given all kinds of names by all sorts of people, from ancient philosophers (Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Immanuel Kant, G. E. Moore, Derek Parfit) to modern-day clinical psychologists (Haidt, Dweck, Seligman) to everyday Joes like me.

Some academics call it “Moral Realism”. (Which is a fancy term…) Others call it Humanism. Related ideas have been called Universalism, Cosmopolitanism, Natural Law Theory, or Ubuntu (My Boston Celtics utilized this them when winning their championship in 2008! Go Celts!).

I recently heard someone refer to the same vision as Potentialism. I like this most. Because when you boil all these theories down, what all philosophers, scientists, and everyday Joes are talking about is the simple belief in human potential.

In aseries of articles that follows, I will make the case that Potentialism encapsulates all the others and is the Holy Grail vision that could help us make our next Giant Leap Forward as a country and as a human race.

If we can pay closer attention to the consistency, duration, and truth of these common ideas, postulated over centuries, we may just awaken to the idea that they do—actually and objectively—represent our reality.

Within the human spirit exists an underlying ability to reason and innovate that always puts us back in the driver’s seat, accident after accident. We always struggle in an uphill direction. And it’s always been this way. The next iteration of us is always a better one—more resilient, nicer, kinder, more human. To be more human is to be better because that is who we are. We are simply better.

The lower we go, the higher we go. Because that is what it means to be human.

We are highly intelligent, reasoning creatures. To say “we have great potential” is an understatement. This is not just hopeful, wishy-washy mumbo jumbo, in fact these statements are verifiable by science—which I will write about in a later article.

The vision could give us the strength to work through all of our issues—our own demons and the cultural systems that plague us.

Till next time, thank you for being here.

Peace and love to you. Glenn

We’ve completed a rather in depth look at the various cultural systems and human flaws that we have going against us. It’s now time we look at the plus side!

The following is a list of things we have going for us that can enable us to overcome the things that work against us, to build a better, more peaceful society.

1. We have the ability to reason, like no other animal on the planet!

2. Our reasoning abilities have always led to progress - because virtue flows from human reasoning.

3. Virtue works - High levels of personal and collective virtue we do well (both individually and as a society). Low levels and we falter … And it’s always been this way.

4. We have shown an ability and willingness to avoid dysfunction.

5. More science backed prevention tools which can allow us to hold onto our good and limit our bad; (e.g. social connection theory, neuroplasticity, positive psychology)

6. We know more today than we ever have about how to be happy and to maintain skills of citizenship!

7. We know what causes hate and wars. We could do a better job of synthesizing under one umbrella of common values rooted in virtue.

The foregoing has been a summary of what we have going for us. However, these truths must be taught and reinforced or they get swept away by the Mighty River. Do we have it in us?

Thank you for being here! What you think about what I’ve written here? Are you enjoying this series? Please comment.

Sincerely,

Glenn

I came across an article by Pearce Godwin, the founder of Listen First Project, published in USA Today. In it he lays out the four ways many of us are responding to politics these days. He gives our behaviors names: Delusion, Doom, Duck, and Dash.

First - Delusion. We tend to suffer the delusion that we could eventually vanquish those on the other side of our politics. In reality, it isn’t going to happen.

Second - Doom. We resign ourselves to a second civil war.

Third - Duck. We retreat from civic life altogether, hunkering down with only family and close friends.

And lastly- Dash. Those who have an exit plan from the United States altogether.

These are some of the reactions we are prone to make when up against the Mighty River. This is what the loss of reason and moderation looks like. To see Pearce Godwin’s full article, go here. I certainly hope we will choose to be better than these choices. What do you think? Do we have it in us to usher in a spirit of renewed hope and positivity this year- for America’s 250? If you don’t believe we do, can you please comment and let me know what you think? I would love to work with you to make our reality a brighter one. Kind regards. Thanks for being here. Glenn

In our last article I posed a most important question: Do we have it in us?

We all know the human element is a complex one. At our core, we all want to feel safe. When we feel like we might lose something—our job, our home or our place in the world— we yearn for certainty. When things feel uncertain, we start craving clear answers, strong voices, simple explanations. And in our society that measures success by fame and material wealth, strangers quickly feel like competition, kindness feels risky, and trust in other people feels naive.

Every one of us is capable of reacting too quickly, not looking past the headlines, not checking sources, not considering how tainted American media has become. Fox news v. CNN each tainted with hardline bias which sells us a scapegoat and gives us an easy solution.

Our human compassion doesn’t disappear. It just takes a back seat to safety. We don’t divide because of politics. We divide because we are human.

If we can begin to understand this aspect of our nature, we might gain more empathy for each other.

We might begin to not see our political opponents as fools, but rather as fellow human beings who are trying to feel safe in a complicated world - just like us!

Thank you for being here.

The next article in this series will focus on what loss of moderation and reasonableness looks like - It’s aptly named Delusion, Doom Duck, and Dash -

This is what we tend to do when the structural forces work and the human element, together to beat us down and defeat us. Can we overcome them? What do you think? Please comment. Sincerely, Glenn

In our series, How America Lost Its Reasonableness … I wrote nine separate articles about the dominant most powerful forces shaping modern society.

Can we rise above complex cultural systems that constantly pull us toward fear, outrage, tribalism, distraction, and division? Or are we simply too emotional, too reactive, and too easily manipulated to build the kind of balanced and cooperative society we hope for?

This is the most important question of all because it moves beyond politics and technology and asks something fundamental about human nature itself.

The truth is that human beings carry two very different capacities within them at the same time. We are capable of compassion, wisdom, creativity, patience, and extraordinary cooperation. But we are also capable of selfishness, cruelty, tribal thinking and extreme self-protection. History shows both sides clearly.

Human beings have built democracies, advanced science, expanded human rights, and cared for one another in remarkable ways. Yet we have also divided into groups, spread hatred, fallen into propaganda, and repeatedly struggled with conflict stemming from distrust.

The future of a stable, peaceful society depends on whether we can strengthen our capacity for reflection, learning, and virtue faster than the forces that trigger our worst tendencies. The question is not which one exists- it’s which one we strengthen.

What do you think? Do we have it in us to overcome all these complex and broken cultural systems? Do we possess the ability to recognize harmful systems, human flaws and consciously choose to make the necessary adjustments? Could enough of us become aware of the interrelatedness of all our issues, and begin to work through them, modify or eliminate them? It’s an effort we’ve never been able to collectively make in the past. Please comment. Thank you for being here. Sincerely, Glenn

In this series, I’ve posted nine separate articles describing an element of societal dysfunction. Each of the elements are complex in their own right - requiring some thought to understand. But none of these forces exist in isolation. The generalized sense of noise and confusion in our culture (which me and my students felt but couldn’t understand five years ago)I realize now, after years of research, is rooted in the way these forces interact together. They work together to create a “perfect storm” - and by definition the dangers that lurk within it, we cannot see. And we cannot fix what we do not see.

These moving waters draw energy from one another and gather steam forming one very massive angry river of confusion which blinds us and slowly pits us against each other.

This system is so confusing and complex - It does not require evil intentions to fool us.

The way they all work together is incredibly powerful. Their interrelationships are almost too many to count. In fact, too many to cite here in this article. I prefer that we start a discussion about how they all work together, to blind us and fool us into accepting what I believe to be our perpetually underperforming American society.

These structural elements, along with certain known human frailties create a powerful psychological riddle, and cultural environment that shapes how millions of people think, feel, and react — often without even realizing it.

We can solve this riddle by recognizing the larger system at work. When we un-bundle the system we can begin to get back to sharing a few things in common as human beings, as citizens and as Americans - a common definition of reasonableness and a shared moral structure.

What do you think? Do we have it in us? Please comment or question. As always, thank you for being here.

Sincerely, Glenn

Every society depends on some shared understanding of right and wrong. People do not need to agree on everything, but healthy communities usually share certain basic values: honesty matters, promises should mean something, people should treat each other fairly, and some behaviors are simply unacceptable no matter how profitable or popular they may be. These shared moral expectations help create trust, stability, and social cohesion. They give people a sense that they are living inside a culture with boundaries, responsibilities, and common purpose.

In recent decades, however, American culture has become increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of shared moral standards. More and more, people are encouraged to believe that truth is entirely personal, values are completely subjective, and individuals alone determine what is right for them. In some ways, this has expanded freedom and tolerance, which can be positive. But when taken too far, it can also create confusion about responsibility, accountability, and the common good. If every belief is treated as equally valid and every behavior becomes morally negotiable, societies can slowly lose the shared framework that allows diverse groups of people to live together peacefully.

The danger is not freedom itself — freedom is essential to a healthy society. The deeper danger is what happens when freedom becomes disconnected from responsibility and a sense of concern for other citizens. Over time, a culture built entirely around individual preference can drift toward fragmentation, loneliness, and instability.

A functioning society requires not only rights and freedoms, but also shared principles strong enough to hold people together even when they disagree.

What do you think? Please add a comment to help us flush out these issues. This article is part of a series; How America Lost Its Reasonableness and How We Get It Back. Thank you for being here.

Most Americans want safety, stability, meaningful relationships, and a decent future for themselves and their families. But if someone judged society only by what appears online or on television, they might believe the country is filled almost entirely with angry, extreme, and hostile people. That’s because modern media systems tend to amplify the loudest voices — especially those that provoke strong emotional reactions. Outrage spreads faster than calm discussion, and extreme opinions attract more attention than balanced ones.

Social media algorithms, cable news, and online platforms are designed for engagement. The more emotional a piece of content is, the more likely people are to click, comment, argue, and share it. This fits Americas True North being Money and Power.

Over time, this creates a distorted sense of reality where extreme voices begin to feel much larger and more representative than they actually are. A small number of highly reactive people can end up dominating public conversation, while quieter, more thoughtful individuals slowly withdraw from participating altogether. Many people begin feeling pressure to choose sides, speak in absolutes, or harden their views simply to keep up with the emotional intensity surrounding them.

The danger is not only political polarization, but a complete distortion of our reality. When people are constantly exposed to hostility and contempt they begin assuming the worst about others before genuine conversation even begins. Trust weakens, (suspicion grows) and society starts organizing itself around fear and tribal identity rather than efforts and activism to help society heal and unite. When the loudest voices dominate public attention, society can slowly lose sight of what we are truly capable of.

What do you think? Do you see this being a part of what holds us back as a society? What can we do about this? Thank you for being here. This article is part of a series; How America Lost Its Reasonableness and How We Get It Back.

One of the most powerful forces quietly shaping modern America is the massive difference in wealth between people. As wealth becomes more concentrated, Americans increasingly live in separate worlds — They view the role of government differently. They attend different schools, live in very different neighborhoods and experience completely different levels of opportunity and stress. Over time, people who rarely share the same daily realities begin to lose the ability to truly understand one another’s lives.

This divide affects far more than money. It shapes how people think about work, fairness, government, education, health care, and even human dignity itself. Someone growing up in financial stability may view success as mostly a matter of hard work and discipline, while someone facing constant economic hardship may experience society as deeply unequal and unforgiving. Both perspectives are shaped by real experiences, yet the widening gap between them often creates resentment, mistrust, and political division. When groups no longer feel connected by shared struggles or common opportunities, it becomes harder to maintain a strong sense of national unity.

The deeper danger is that extreme inequality slowly weakens the feeling that “we are all in this together.” A healthy society depends on people believing they share a common future and a mutual responsibility toward one another. But when wealth becomes too unevenly distributed, society can begin to fragment into separate realities where empathy declines and suspicion grows. Economic inequality is not only a financial issue — it is also a psychological and cultural one. The farther apart people drift economically, the harder it often becomes for them to trust, cooperate, and build a stable society together.

For generations, many boys have been taught that being “strong” means being emotionally tough, dominant, certain, and difficult to hurt. Vulnerability is often treated as weakness, while aggression, confidence, and control are praised as signs of masculinity. Some of these traits can be valuable in the right balance — resilience and courage matter. But when an entire culture begins teaching young men that empathy, emotional openness, or uncertainty make them less masculine, something important begins to break down inside relationships, families, and society itself.

Social media and modern culture often intensify these pressures. Young men today are constantly exposed to influencers, entertainment, and online personalities that glorify power, status, physical dominance, and emotional detachment. Many are taught that life is about winning, never backing down, and proving strength at all costs. Over time, this can create defensive identities where admitting mistakes, listening carefully, or showing compassion feels threatening to a person’s sense of self. Instead of learning how to navigate conflict constructively, many people become trapped in cycles of pride, insecurity, anger, and emotional isolation.

The deeper issue is not masculinity itself, but imbalance. Healthy strength includes self-control, wisdom, empathy, and the ability to protect and care for others — not simply dominate them. A society that glorifies toughness while neglecting emotional intelligence often produces people who struggle to connect, trust, or cooperate deeply with one another. Young men especially deserve a healthier vision of strength: one that includes courage and resilience, but also humility, compassion, and the ability to understand other human beings without feeling diminished by it.

Human beings naturally pay more attention to danger than safety. Thousands of years ago, this instinct helped us survive because noticing threats quickly could mean the difference between life and death. Modern media, however, has learned how strongly fear, conflict, and outrage capture human attention. As a result, news organizations, social media platforms, and online content creators often focus heavily on violence, scandal, division, disaster, and anger because those stories keep people watching, clicking, and emotionally engaged.

Over time, this creates a distorted picture of reality. Even though most people go through their daily lives surrounded by ordinary acts of kindness, cooperation, and decency, the world presented through screens can feel overwhelmingly hostile and chaotic. Many people begin believing society is collapsing, that other Americans are dangerous or irrational, or that conflict is everywhere all the time. The constant emotional pressure also exhausts people psychologically, leaving them anxious, angry, or emotionally numb. For younger generations who have grown up surrounded by nonstop media, this atmosphere can quietly shape how they see humanity itself.

The danger is not simply that negative events are reported — serious problems deserve attention. The deeper issue is imbalance. When fear and outrage dominate the information people consume every day, it becomes harder to think clearly, trust one another, or maintain perspective. A society repeatedly exposed to emotionally charged negativity can slowly become more suspicious, reactive, and divided, even when most people still desire peace and connection. Over time, constant negative media does not merely report social division — it can actively deepen and reinforce it.

Most Americans grow up believing democracy is supposed to bring people together to solve problems. We imagine elections rewarding leaders who are wise, balanced, honest, and willing to work with different kinds of people. However, our current system rewards the opposite.

Our current laws and systems push candidates to appeal to the most extreme and angry parts of their own political party. This happens because of the way “Primary elections” work. In many states, only a small number of people vote in primaries. The people most likely to participate are usually the most “dug in” and ideological members of each party. Because of this, politicians often focus on pleasing their party’s strongest supporters rather than reaching moderate Americans.

This creates a dangerous cycle. Candidates who sound the most confrontational, and who fight most fiercely for their “tribe” get more donations. Moderate leaders struggle to compete.

Each side fears the other side winning in a way that appears to be a matter of life or death. This fear encourages politicians to attack each other. Our system of politics has become so extreme - run by radicals on both sides of our two party system - makes most of us in the middle - who don’t fear the word compromise - feel hopeless about politics altogether.

Our systems also invite the practice of negative advertising that brings us all down to our lowest common denominator - and because of our broken system we’ve been here for a while. We live in a state of constant political warfare between two sides.

Most Americans are not extremists but our system is turning us into a bunch of tribalistic haters. Our misunderstanding is not a fault of our own. Instead it is very much the fault of our state laws and rules concerning how our elections work. Many people of humility are well at work trying to modify our systems to produce our most qualified political candidates, but until we focus on this issue, and understand how it relates to the other cultural systems which divide us, we will - I’m afraid- remain divided by these forces. Thank you for being here. I hope you are enjoying this series.

For most of human history, reading was one of the primary ways people developed patience, knowledge, imagination, and the ability to think deeply. Reading forces the mind to slow down, concentrate, and wrestle with ideas that are often complicated or uncomfortable. But today, long-form reading is increasingly being replaced by scrolling, short videos, rapid entertainment, and endless streams of quick information. Many people — especially younger generations raised on fast digital content — are consuming more information than ever while spending less time truly reflecting on it.

This shift changes more than attention spans. It changes the way people think. Deep reading helps people understand complexity, recognize nuance, and consider perspectives different from their own. Without those habits, it becomes easier for society to fall into oversimplified thinking where every issue becomes “good versus evil” or “us versus them.” Social media and modern entertainment often reward emotional reactions and instant opinions rather than thoughtful understanding. Over time, a culture that reads less deeply may also become more reactive, more polarized, and easier to manipulate emotionally.

The danger is not that people are becoming unintelligent. In many ways, people today are highly informed and technologically capable. The deeper concern is that wisdom, reflection, and intellectual discipline are slowly being crowded out by speed, distraction, and constant stimulation. A healthy democracy depends on citizens who can think critically, question what they hear, and patiently work through difficult problems together. When a society loses its connection to deep learning and intellectual growth, it often loses some of its ability to reason collectively — and division becomes much easier to create. I hope you are enjoying this important series, How America Lost It’s Reasonableness. Thank you for being here - It means a lot. We may be doing more than we can realize, by trying to understand Americas problems - piece by piece - and maybe overtime it will coalesce into meaningful improvement in our country.

Human beings evolved sitting across from one another — reading facial expressions, hearing tone of voice, noticing emotion, and slowly building trust through real human interaction. But in just a few decades, much of our communication has moved onto screens. Text messages, comment sections, social media posts, and short videos now dominate the way we interact. While technology has connected us in incredible ways, it has also quietly removed many of the human signals that help people understand one another with empathy and patience.

When people communicate online, conversations often become faster, harsher, and more emotionally reactive. It is easier to interrupt, insult, stereotype, or dismiss someone when you are not physically sitting with them. Misunderstandings spread quickly because short messages rarely carry the emotional depth of real conversation. Social media also rewards outrage and emotional reactions because those posts generate the most attention and engagement. Over time, many people begin experiencing communication less as a way to understand each other and more as a competition to win arguments, gain approval, or defend their side.

For younger generations especially, this environment can shape how relationships, identity, and even self-worth are formed. Many people now spend more time managing online impressions than building deep real-world connections. The result is a culture where people are constantly connected digitally yet often feel increasingly isolated emotionally. Technology itself is not the enemy. The deeper question is whether human beings were designed to live primarily through screens — and what happens to trust, understanding, and community when face-to-face human connection slowly disappears from everyday life.

If someone asked what America values most, many people would probably say freedom, family, or opportunity. But if we are honest about how our culture actually behaves, a different answer quietly appears: money, status, and power.

From the time we are young, we are surrounded by messages telling us that success means becoming rich, influential, admired, or famous. The people we celebrate most are often not the wisest or kindest among us, but the wealthiest, loudest, and most powerful.

Over time, this changes the way people see themselves and each other. Instead of asking, “Is this person thoughtful, trustworthy, or compassionate?” we begin asking, “What do they own? What do they earn? How important are they?”

Social media intensifies this pressure by turning life into a constant performance where people compare lifestyles, appearances, and success. For young people especially, it can begin to feel as though personal worth itself is tied to achievement, popularity, or financial success.

The problem is not money itself - meaningful work, and economic success matter. The deeper problem is what happens when material success becomes the center of our culture and the main measure of human value.

When that happens, empathy weakens, community erodes, and people slowly begin competing instead of connecting. A society organized primarily around status and wealth will almost always struggle to create trust, unity, and genuine human fulfillment, when genuine human fulfillment, peace and happiness across the board - regardless of our differences, is what most of us are looking for.

I hope that if we can begin to understand the forces that are really, truly behind the chaos - and manifesting themselves through our politics and culture wars, that we may be able to begin to heal and unit. The next article will be the next “Ingredient” or Structural Element - another short article- which explains the phenomenon briefly, for our future discussion. Thank you for being here.

Summary of “Structural Elements” of Societal Division

1. America’s True North: Money, Power, and Material Success
   We have organized society around wealth and power as the primary measures of human value, crowding out virtues like dignity, compassion, and the common good.

2. Communicating Through Screens Instead of in Person (Internet & Social Media)
   Digital communication has weakened trust, distorted understanding, and replaced human connection with fast, shallow, and often misleading exchanges.

3. The Decline of Reading and Intellectual Growth
   As we have lost our cultural commitment to education and knowledge, we have also lost the shared capacity to reason, understand, and solve problems together. We are no longer a culture of readers and learners. If you go to Harvard today, if you cite a book or offer a quotation to support your view, you are cast aside as an elitist who is talking down to people.

4. An Electoral System That Rewards Extremes
   Our political structures increasingly favor the most partisan and extreme voices, discouraging moderation and pushing balanced leaders out of the process.

5. Constant Negative Media and the Distortion of Reality
   A 24/7 cycle of negative news exploits our natural bias toward fear and conflict, leaving us with a skewed and pessimistic view of one another.

6. Blind Masculinity and the Glorification of Toughness
   Cultural pressures that equate strength with dominance and certainty push many—especially men—toward rigid, defensive identities that resist empathy and cooperation.

7. Money as the Great Distancer: The Gap Between Have and Have-Nots
   Deep and persistent economic inequality creates fundamentally different lived experiences, widely differing ideas for the role of government, and eroding shared identity.

8. The Few Loudest and Most Extreme Voices Shape Reality
   A small number of highly reactive and emotionally driven individuals can dominate public discourse, amplifying division and pulling societies away from balance.

9. The Loss of a Shared Moral Foundation (“Anything Goes”)
   Without a broadly accepted set of moral norms, society struggles to define limits, uphold virtue, or maintain cohesion, leading to fragmentation and conflict.

Respectfully submitted after years of researching the root causes of societal division. Thank you for joining in me in making the effort to become more aware of how these factors shape our reality.

The next group of articles will be short explanations of each of the elements for our discussion. After that, we will consider together how all these cultural systems and “sneakily” occurring phenomenon work together in most powerful way to produce the society that we have. I hope to work through them in discussion with you. America’s 250 Birthday is only weeks away - we have lots of work to do. As always, thank you for being here! Glenn

In my last two articles, How The Left Lost Millions Of Moderates, and How Political Correctness Divided America, I’ve shared several observations; that millions of moderate Americans have become less trusting and more defensive, less open to change, and less open to hope and optimism. People I know well, and who I never would have thought would change the way they have, are now outwardly telling me that they have less compassion for people in need, and less tolerance for people who hold different views. This has been very regretful for me.

I don’t blame or judge anyone for the views they hold, but I ask that we consider how we are being manipulated by certain Structural Elements which are badly blinding us and dividing us.

What we have been experiencing is what I call The Gutting of moderate America, but the gutting of middle America doesn’t happen without a bunch of elements all working together to deceive us. It doesn’t happen, for example without 24/7 negative news bombarding us. It doesn’t happen without the onset of the internet and social media playing upon our worst traits. The gutting of moderate America comes with it our glorification of rugged individualism and how we only measure GDP. It comes with it the fact that our true north is money, power.

The gutting of moderate America doesn’t happen without our decline in reading and intellectual growth.

The gutting of moderate America is the gutting of reasonableness. It is the loss of temperament and disposition, a loss of capacity - and it exists on both sides of our great political divides.

But none of it is our fault. We are up against forces that we cannot see. I’m hoping that if we think deeply about the main Structural Elements involved, maybe we can slowly start to see our way back to being more moderate and balanced in our approach.

As always, thanks for being here. We hold the key to returning moderation and reasonableness to our everyday lives. Sincerely yours, Glenn

There’s a short comedy sketch from The Babylon Bee called Ultra Jump Hamster Legend, which says about all you need to know about political correctness, regardless of your politics.

It’s about a simple kids’ video game—a cartoon hamster jumping around collecting cheese. Then a DEI consultant is brought in to review it, and everything falls apart. Suddenly, the hamster is no longer a hamster. In fact, every part of the game is forced to carry a deeper social meaning. By the end, the original game—the simple, joyful thing it started as—is completely unrecognizable.

Watch it here: Ultra Jump Hamster Legend, best of 2024 Babylon Bee YouTube link:

You don’t have to agree with the politics of the sketch to see the important meaning in it - that is for millions of Americans, it doesn’t feel like satire, it’s all too real. I wish to humbly submit to you that if we pay attention here - in terms of how “The Left Has Lost Millions of Moderates” we may gain more understanding of people on the “other side” of our politics.

Over the past decade, many people have watched ordinary spaces—schools, workplaces, media, even entertainment—become more complicated and more controlled in how people are expected to think, speak, and behave. It wasn’t just one thing. It was a pattern, of pushing issues too far, too fast.

The issues you are familiar with: progressive immigration policy and sanctuary cities that millions feel are too loose and put pressure on communities by straining local resources for health care and housing; government mandated DEI programs that feel forced or unfair rather than unifying; gender and cultural issues that seemed pushed too far, too fast, with little room to question; and climate policies that have felt dictated instead of being an open discussion.

The point is, that millions of Americans feel as though they are being preached to and talked down to, and they are tired of being corrected, tired of feeling like disagreement makes them a bad person. The result:

Democrat politicians are being booed out of their hometown baseball stadiums, (April 3, 2026, Michelle Wu and Maura Healy in Fenway Park, my hometown) not just by maniacal or ignorant Trump supporters. In fact, millions of moderates are no longer responding to anti-Trump rhetoric. They don’t care for the man, but your politics scares them far more than he does. (If you want to know why keep reading this and future Substacks)

I know the far left may say that “we pushed for necessary progress” and may allude to the civil rights movement. This is not a result or an argument that we need to take sides over. It is an observation—like it or not—there is a larger and louder side telling us that political correctness (ill-defined) has gone too far.

What is worse is that political correctness, taken too far, has led millions to be less patient with social change, more receptive to fear-based arguments, and more willing to support candidates they once would have rejected.

Therefore, to the anti-Trump crowd and Democratic hyper-partisans, please consider admitting that these issues have been handled poorly and many people have been dismissed who shouldn’t have been.

Today, respectfully, I believe you can do more for your party, and more for this country, by listening more closely to the other side of your politics—not because they are right, or because you’re wrong, but because there is truth in the satire. It reveals how millions of formerly moderate and reasonable people actually feel.

Our recognizing how fear builds in millions of Americans, regardless of our politics, is the key to helping our country overcome this cycle of dysfunction we are in. That’s not giving up ground. That’s rebuilding trust.

I recently read an article in the Boston Globe entitled, “How The Left Lost Me,” by Sabrina Joy Stevens, which struck a chord with me.

The article seems to describe a set of circumstances with which you may already be familiar, but that I wanted to be sure to understand fully myself, because it may be the leading factor of how Americans have become so divided by politics.

It seems to me that many people I know closely, who in the past described themselves as “socially liberal” and “fiscally conservative” have become far less liberal and way more conservative. In her article, Ms. Stevens begins to describe how this has happened.

She writes, “I now find myself among millions of swing voters who dislike the Democrats even more than we dislike the GOP… I left because I could no longer deny its own authoritarian tendencies … Party activists have adopted an identitarian ideology that cultivates a noxious sense of grievance, entitlement, and nihilism, fueling divisiveness…” These words, although more complex than I would prefer, seem to be describing what I have been feeling for some time, but for which I couldn’t quite understand. So, I have done more research on this phenomenon and have written my next several articles about this general topic.

I’m hoping that by looking at what happened to us, in terms of the structural elements we can begin to understand how to heal and unite. It may require that we choose to just let each other off the hook for our past mistakes and decide to move forward with a more healthy and open perspective.

Thank you for being here and for caring about how to help our country heal and unite!