It is a mistake to assume that Americans naturally know how to be good citizens. We are not born instinctively knowing how to serve, honor, and love our country. It is not passed down in the bloodstream. And we certainly do not automatically know how to participate in our political system with knowledge and wisdom. We are not born innately knowing how to be good citizens. It is a skill that requires teaching. It must be learned. It requires attention and effort.

The end of August brought the beginning of the fall semester. I entered the classroom and greeted dozens of students enrolled in their first government course of their college career, Introduction to Federal Government. I decided this semester to give them a little pre-quiz to set a baseline of where the students were on the very first day of class. I asked them five questions, all of which should be known by about 9^th grade. Simple questions, like “Name the three branches of government,” and “Name two rights found in the 1^st Amendment.” Very few students were able to answer all five questions correctly. And I had several students unable to answer even one correctly. These are students entering college.

National survey data tells us that my students are not an anomaly. The results of the Annenberg Civic Knowledge Survey show us that Americans are surprisingly deficient in some core areas. Only 48% of Americans surveyed in 2025 could cite “freedom of religion” as a 1^st Amendment right. Only 34% could cite freedom of the press.

And if you are wondering if party affiliation mattered, it did not. Self-described Republicans and self-described Democrats had roughly the same scores. Deficiencies in civic knowledge are a bipartisan problem.

Civic knowledge is an important component of good citizenship. Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, puts it this way, “People can’t cherish, safeguard, or exercise their constitutionally protected rights unless they know that they have them and understand how effective use of them sustains our system of government.”

In other words, we do not want Americans to simply be able to recite facts about their government and their rights; we want them to understand the principles behind these facts. We want them to be able to apply them to everyday situations. But knowing them is an essential first step. It becomes much harder to protect essential freedoms like religion and press if less than half of Americans are familiar with these rights. Of course, good citizenship is much more than simple civic knowledge. But civic knowledge is a foundation for all the rest.

Research shared by Dr. Lindsey Cormack in her fantastic book How to Raise a Citizen shows that the public school system does not include as much civic education as we may assume. Across all the states, a shift in priority to STEM fields has minimized how much government students are getting in K-12 education.

The shift to STEM may benefit the workforce, but let us never forget that without good government, all other things will suffer. John Adams articulated this principle well when he was in Paris, trying to solidify support for our new nation:

“I must study politicks and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematicks and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematicks and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.”

Here you see Adams give an order of priorities. First, he must study politics and war, so that we have liberty. So that we have good government. Then all the rest may follow. Our generation takes for granted that we are on solid ground with this first principle, with our core foundation. And perhaps we still are. But we will not be forever if we continue to neglect principles of good citizenship.

Russell Dalton, a prominent citizenship theory scholar, identifies participation (beyond just voting), understanding the reasoning of others, monitoring government, helping others, and serving your country when called upon, as important components of good citizenship. These elements are all dependent on some knowledge coupled with some type of action. Some responsibility. And a sense of civic virtue.

When we observe American politics, there are many examples of poor civic behavior. Lack of civic virtue, lack of a sense of duty to one’s country, lack of knowledge about the fundamentals of freedom. It may also be tempting to accuse only young people of this deficiency, but it is found in middle-aged and older Americans as well. Decades of prosperity have perhaps made us a bit complacent about our duty to our nation.

Each of us has a responsibility to take our job of citizen seriously. Let us fill in holes in our knowledge if we have them. Let us revisit the core ideas of human freedom and natural rights and hold them dear. Let us renew our commitment to our neighbors, our communities, our states and our nation. Let us ponder the importance of civic virtue and our ability to live out our principles. And let us never take for granted that our citizenship is important and worthy of attention and effort.

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Republican Senators Tillis, Cornyn, and Cassidy have an incredible amount of freedom from now until January 3, 2027. The absence of a reelection campaign, either by choice (Tillis) or by devastating primary losses (Cornyn and Cassidy), means they are no longer susceptible to pressure from the White House or party leaders. They no longer need to worry about retribution from Trump, because Trump has already ended their political careers. They have roughly four months of power left, and at least in theory, they can use it however they want.

We saw the first big test for this with Todd Blanche’s nomination for Attorney General. Cornyn and Tillis sit on the Judiciary Committee, the first stop for an Attorney General nominee. There are many problems with Blanche, Trump’s former personal attorney, but the Senators focused on one of the biggest: his approval of the “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” a $1.776 billion fund established through a court settlement from Trump’s suing of the IRS.

A few quick reminders about the creation of this fund. The President, the head of the Executive Branch of the United States of America, sued one of his own agencies, the IRS, because his tax returns were leaked during a previous administration. His own Justice Department and his own IRS came up with this billion-dollar settlement agreement. It was not a court-ordered amount. Then Trump declared that this $1.776 billion would be used to issue payouts to anyone who could claim they were victims of “lawfare” under the Biden administration. Including, and here’s the kicker, convicted January 6^th rioters.

In May, Todd Blanche signed an addendum to the Trump v. IRS settlement that would also protect the President from any further tax audits. But by July, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams had voided the whole thing.

Here’s where the freed Senators come in. Cornyn wanted a written, signed statement from Todd Blanche acknowledging the Anti-Weaponization Fund was dead. Todd Blanche refused to sign such a statement. So, for a brief period, Cornyn and Tillis refused to back Blanche for Attorney General, and without their votes, his nomination would be dead in committee. The Senators showed remarkable independence.

I found myself thinking, is this how Senators would behave if we had Congressional term limits? Is this an example of how Senators would act if they were free from the pressure of reelection? Perhaps the push for term limits needs to be revived. This would be a big reform, but the public seems ready for a big reform.

But then Blanche agreed to a written statement, and Cornyn and Tillis agreed to vote him out of committee. And Cassidy gave an emotional speech on the floor of the Senate, saying he would vote for Blanche, so that someone worse wouldn’t get the job. Blanche was sworn in as Attorney General on Monday.

The Senators’ moment of independence was over. They were able to get a key concession out of Blanche, and that is something, but they could have completely killed his nomination, and that would have been better. So why were they not more bold?

As I was pondering this, I remembered a detail from McKay Coppins’ book on Mitt Romney. He wrote the former Senator usually ate dinner alone in his D.C. townhouse, salmon from Susan Murkowski out of his freezer, and a Diet Coke. A bare fridge, a quiet house. After Romney voted for Trump’s impeachment, he was largely abandoned by the Washington-Republican-In-Crowd. The invitations stopped. His independence in the Senate had a social cost.

I thought about this again when I saw Cassidy tear up on the Senate floor, “I’ll be criticized for this vote, what’s new?” Then a pause while he is emotional. “But the people of Louisiana…” Another pause as he chokes up, “can be assured that I worked hard to understand the issue, and to make the right decision.” What can we make of this display of emotion when he gets to the part about approval?

Certainly, it is tied to the pain of losing his primary. Republicans in Louisiana rejected him. They cast their ballots for the more extreme Republican, with the Trump endorsement. But after this rejection, why not be more bold? It is difficult to believe that Cassidy really approves of Blanche.

I suspect there is also a social approval element from his Senatorial colleagues. A desire not to be in the out-group. To not lose all his Senate buddies. He’s already losing his special membership in the prestigious Senate club. Perhaps it’s also painful to feel he is losing the approval of his fellow members. Perhaps Tillis, Cornyn and Cassidy don’t want the Romney treatment. Perhaps this matters much more than we realize.

If this human element is the driving force of their lack of boldness in their final months, it would make sense. It is also difficult to think of an institutional solution to such a problem, but term-limits may help. If Senators always knew there was an end-date to their club membership, maybe leaving wouldn’t also be attached to a sense of shame.

It is one of the great failures of this political era that the Senate has not fulfilled its important role. It has not offered the check on the Executive branch that has been so badly needed. It has not shown steady leadership when the nation badly needed steadiness. Tillis, Cornyn, and Cassidy have four months left to fulfill their roles with dignity. To dare to act on their conscience. Let us watch carefully and see how they use their newfound freedom.

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Sam Rayburn, former Speaker of the House, was known for his witty “Rayburnisms”:

“There is a time to fish and a time to mend nets.”

“It is a wise man who realizes that the church is bigger than its pastor.”

“Don’t ever count the crop until it is in the barn.”

And my favorite: “Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a carpenter to build it.”

As Speaker, his job was to gather enough consensus from other House members to pass legislation. This was complicated work. He had to build support, make compromises, and shepherd deals carefully over the finish line. He knew well from experience that it is difficult to build things.

On the other hand, it does not take any skill to tear down what others have built. Complaining requires no special ability. Obstinance requires no talent. It is easy to point out flaws and failures. The skill lies in the person who can do the creating and the building necessary to govern well. And building is incredibly hard.

Reformists often rise on their promises to tear down existing government structures and create new ones. To tear down the old and raise up a new way of life. Some tear-down-and-build movements are noble and worth the effort. You could think of our American Revolution as one of those movements. But let us never forget that building back up again is incredibly difficult. We should not tear things down without a solid plan for how to build them back up.

I was reminded recently of that old Rayburn quote after I read the Democratic Socialists of America’s platform. They want to abolish several core parts of our federal government. The Senate, for example, should be abolished and the House expanded. “Abolish the Electoral College. Replace the President and Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress.” They advocate for a full redo of our American system of Government.

Their platform is bold. But how much is doable? And do they show signs of having the “carpenter” skills necessary to pull any of it off?

It almost feels to me like a high-school level social studies project. If you were building a government from scratch, what would it look like? And of course, not all their ideas are bad. They propose proportional representation and a multi-party system, which could be a change for the better. But all their ideas require a complete reset. A complete kicking down of the barn.

They know what they want, but do they show signs of knowing how to build it? How to work across political groups to establish this new order? How to unite groups with varied interests? How to compromise to make change? How to take concrete steps to achieve even just one of their lofty goals?

Let us remember how hard it was to create and ratify the U.S. Constitution. Remember how the first attempt to edit the Articles of Confederation was at a convention in Annapolis, Maryland, and it was a complete failure. Only a handful of states bothered to send delegates. All they were able to accomplish was to set another date for another attempt at a convention.

Let us remember that after witnessing this failure, James Madison became determined to make the next convention a success. He personally lobbied George Washington and other high-profile delegates to attend. He wrote a document called the “Vice of the Political System of the United States of America” that detailed the specific problems that needed to be addressed. He circulated the document to everyone he knew who may be a delegate to the upcoming convention. He laid the intellectual groundwork.

Then he came prepared to the Philadelphia Convention with a new plan, the “Virginia Plan,” that was based on years of his private study of political theory and government structure. He carefully set rules for the convention: no discussing the day’s events outside of the room, no writing letters with the details of the discussions. He knew it would be difficult enough to arrive at consensus among the delegates present in the room without bringing in outside opinions. He was prepared, and he was strategic.

Let us remember that Madison proposed proportional representation for each chamber. He did not want only two Senators per state. But the smaller states would not agree to this; New Jersey had its own ideas. And so, they arrived at the Great Compromise, brought forward by the Connecticut delegation. No state got a hundred percent of what they wanted. But the deal was sufficient to receive enough signatures to pass. He and all the others showed the ability to compromise.

It still was not a done deal. That was just the phase of creation. Next, they had to seek the approval of the states for ratification. And by that point, there was heavy opposition from the Anti-Federalists. Madison, Hamilton, and John Jay set out trying to explain and defend the new Constitution with their writings in the newspapers. They put in a tremendous amount of intellectual effort on what we now call the Federalist Papers. And even that was not enough. They eventually had to agree to add something else: an addition of a specific list of rights for the people, and a specific provision that reserved some powers to the states. And finally, the Anti-Federalists would agree. And it was ratified.

Are the Democratic Socialists of America prepared to do all this again?

Why not start with a smaller goal? I am not arguing here that our current system of government is flawless, or that it would not benefit from some reforms. But let us take a realistic approach. And let us put our faith in leaders who understand that building consensus for specific reforms will take careful planning and lots of consensus-building.

Let us pay attention to the men and women who really get the hard work of governing done. The carpenters. Let’s pay attention to who they are and reward them with our support.

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As I sit at a red light in drizzly rain, I notice the dark red Chevy Corvette in front of me. In black etching, barely noticeable, is a “We the People Are Pissed” slogan. And I wonder if the person in the car is pissed about the recent ICE shootings, or other things. Since that phrase became popular with conservatives during Biden’s administration, and I am in Texas, I assume it’s other things.

From where do we get our outrage? What feeds it? And who is it directed towards? Sometimes the answer is clearly connected with an event. Those feeling outraged about the death of two fathers at the hands of ICE this week needed no coaching to get to that feeling. The images of the men on the ground were enough. But other times we are subtly led into feelings of outrage, and our shoulders turned towards enemies to blame. These feelings can be stoked by the type of media we consume.

The cable news commentary world is an especially big source of outrage. For example, a clear pattern is noticeable on Fox News programs. There is a repeated narrative. A story that involves a noble fight against a repulsive enemy. Every news story is filtered through this narrative. It reminds me of the old Mad Libs I used to do as a child. Supply a noun here, put an action word there. It is a structured fill-in-the-blank story. There are certain enemy words one supplies when there is a problem: socialist, communist, leftist, immigrant, Obama, Biden, over-educated, woke, transgender, Muslim, college professors. Pick one and insert it into the blank provided.

On left-leaning programs: overly religious Christians, the poorly educated, privileged middle-class white women, white men, billionaires, out-of-touch baby boomers, MAGA anything, weak Democrats who won’t fight back. Select the issue of the day. Provide a person or group to blame. Rant against them for a bit. Include some mockery, insulting language, and misrepresentative exaggeration. Return to a place of self-satisfaction that “our viewers” know better. Rinse and repeat.

Commentary on the best, most reputable shows will have experts who provide nuanced analysis of the news story based on their specific area of expertise. This can add helpful context for viewers. But this is not what most political commentary shows are today. The most popular ones are filled with people with no special expert-level background, and their comments are far from analytical. Instead, these commentators pivot to formulas that are comfortable. Formulas that provide someone to blame for the incident. And the ‘someones’ are people not on their political team. At the heart of this type of political commentary is political tribalism.

And so, the explanation from the pretty woman with long legs on the curved couch, or the well-suited man with the nice haircut behind the desk, will select an explanation for the incident that focuses blame on the people in politics who are not on their political team. Objectivity is not attempted.

Why do viewers seem to like this type of commentary so much? Why is it some of the most successful media out there? Because it feels good to have one’s own views reinforced. Our suspicions about “those” people confirmed by someone with a big, polished platform. It feels good to have someone to blame for the country’s problems, and perhaps for our own personal problems too.

But of course, blaming groups of people for problems has consequences. It can cause us to feel nothing when someone from an enemy group suffers. When ICE fatally shoots a young Colombian man in front of his wife and three-year-old daughter, and no feeling of sorrow bubbles up, there is something wrong. We see the consequences of inserting the word “immigrant” into the enemy narrative when some Americans justify death with “well, he should have stopped faster.” Enemy narratives can make our hearts hard.

A popular young female political influencer, “kayoffscript” wrote the following after the recent immigrant deaths: “I’m immune to sob stories about illegals. I’m immune to caring about how they’re removed. As long as they are removed. All of them. Illegals have stolen from us. Our children’s future. Invaded our country. All have to go. Past time for sympathy for Americans not illegals.” Her words leave little room for a misinterpretation of her feelings. This group of human beings, “illegals,” are the enemy in her narrative. And enemies deserve no sympathy.

This type of political commentary may be popular, but it will not lead us to better public policy or a more prosperous nation. It is not a sign of a virtuous society, and it will not help us in our continuous pursuit of a free and flourishing American nation. Let us learn to recognize enemy narratives, wherever we may find them, and reject them.

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I wonder sometimes how the last ten years in the United States would have been different if we had the version of the U.S. Senate that was originally designed by the framers. The U.S. Senate was structured to be like a wise old man speaking calmly in a room full of adolescents screaming at one another. It was designed to be our national fail-safe. A body of “temperate” and “respectable” citizens that would create stability in our government. We could have used a bit of that this past decade.

A fun fact: in Federalist 62 and 63, written by James Madison to explain the role of the Senate, he uses the term “stable” or “stability” eight times. He envisioned a stability that could ride out any crazy trend in public opinion. A stable part of the government that would provide sanity when the nation drifted into insanity. That could be calm when others were frantic. That could disregard public opinion calling for changes antithetical to the nation’s well-being. That would be its guardians.

This election year is filled with exciting Senate races from Maine to Texas, and in between. Several of this year’s nominees, however, are serious departures from the original vision of what a U.S. Senator would be like. At least two nominees this year, one Republican, one Democrat, have serious ethical shortcomings that were widely known to primary voters pre-election day. Both ended up with landslide party victories. Their victories tell me that we have moved away from a popular understanding of the original vision of what a United States Senator would look like. The kind of person Madison envisioned would be noteworthy for their “stability of character.” And perhaps we have moved away from this vision because we, as a society, are no longer knowledgeable about the unique stabilizing purpose of the U.S. Senate.

The U.S. Senate has something that the U.S. House does not: electoral protection from rapid shifts in public opinion. We see this in two of its design features. First, Senators were originally selected by the state legislatures, not through direct election. Everyday citizens were not directly involved in the process. Without their direct involvement, Senators could be protected from having to be beholden directly to the popular will. This would give Senators some measure of autonomy. This autonomy would, in turn, allow them to act in a way that was best for the country overall, even if it meant not going along with the whims of public opinion in their state.

If this sounds a bit anti-democratic, it was. Remember that not every part of our federal government was designed to be instantly responsive to the popular will. The Senate was not designed to be democratic. The House of Representatives was crafted to be the “People’s House,” the part of the government that would be most reflective of the people’s will. That’s why they got short terms and were elected directly by the people. This is also why they got some special powers; for instance, all taxation or “revenue” bills must start in the House of Representatives.

The ratification of the 17^th Amendment in 1913, which allowed for the direct election of all Senators, took away one layer of electoral protection for Senators. But even with this great change, another safeguard for the U.S. Senate remained, and this was the long length of their terms. Six-year term lengths surpassed even what was allotted to U.S. Presidents. This allowed Senators to develop what political scientists dub “institutional memory,” or the idea that they could fully learn their roles, become experts in them, and continue their work long-term without the interruption of an election.

The long length of term allows Senators to have a measure of protection from the rebuke of the electorate if they cast their vote on a piece of legislation they felt was necessary for the good of the nation, but was unpopular in their state. They have time to recover politically. And this protection should encourage them to have the courage to do the right thing for the country, even when the right thing may not be the most popular thing in the moment.

But this ability to do the right thing, even when it may not be the most popular, hinges on one crucial element, that the Senator is able to see what that right thing is, and has the wisdom to act accordingly. This requires personal character, knowledge, wisdom, and patriotism. How many Senators today would fit that description? How many would we say have “stability of character”? Some, I think. But far fewer than are necessary to sustain the original vision of what the Senate should provide.

What would have been different over the last ten years in the United States if the Senate had fulfilled the role the founders laid out for them? Of course, we will never know for sure. But in an era of big political disappointments, the Senate has been one of the biggest. Because the Senate should know better. The Senate could have played a powerful role in preventing some of the problems we have experienced in the last decade. I’m willing to wager most Americans do not know how much the Senate failed them.

The final piece of this is, of course, our own actions. Since the 17^th Amendment gave us the ability to directly elect our Senators, this important choice falls to us. Will we rise above our tribalistic instincts and make good choices this election year? Let us do our best to pick the candidates we can trust to have good judgment. Let us do our part to keep the unique role of the Senate alive.

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Imagine you are a voter in a primary election. One candidate, the incumbent, has had no personal scandals or ethical allegations. The other candidate has had multiple extra-marital affairs, been investigated by both state and federal authorities for corruption, and had members of his own staff blow the whistle on him for accepting bribes. Both candidates wear the same party label and largely hold the same policy positions. Which candidate would you choose?

It is shocking how many voters will push the button for the ethically challenged candidate. Many voters today appear okay with tossing out character as a prerequisite for office, even in a primary election where the political positions of the candidates are similar. Personal character simply does not weigh in as a factor in their choice.

One cynical line of thinking I’ve heard is this: “they’re all the same” or “they’re all corrupt anyway,” so it does not matter. They are all lacking moral character, so one might as well pick the one that will fight the hardest for my interests. I hear this argument from smart friends. Friends who have been observing politics for a long time, but are now deeply cynical that any politician can be morally good.

The obvious response to this is that it is a sliding scale. We do not want to purposely choose the candidate at the far end of the depravity scale. If you have one candidate with no ethical allegations on their record, no marital betrayal, no federal charges, one may safely assume that they may be less ethically challenged than a candidate who does. They are not both the same. And as much as some may want to discount morality as an important factor for governance, it does indeed matter in several very practical ways.

First, let’s consider internal government operations. Trustworthiness matters in negotiations and deal-making. Both legislative and executive positions rely heavily on working with other people. Especially in Congress, where the body is designed to be deliberative, members must work together to come up with policies that are palatable to a majority of members. This requires operating in good faith. A very basic level of honesty is needed for daily operations. Trustworthiness matters both within your party and across the aisle. Not all government dysfunction stems from two-party fighting. Inter-party fighting stalls results almost as frequently.

Scandal-ridden, ethically challenged officials are also more vulnerable to manipulation. They can be easily blackmailed by inside or outside actors who hold some vulnerable photo or piece of damaging information. Morally challenged candidates can be easier to control because their sins make them more vulnerable.

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Private character matters for smooth internal government operations. It also matters for outward-facing work. Elected officials are public leaders. People follow their cues. Their example matters in society. They can influence public opinion. In many cases, they lead it. In Federalist 10, James Madison wrote of representatives who would “refine and enlarge” the public views, based on their “wisdom” and “love of justice”. He was counting on elected officials doing the best for the people. Taking their views and making them even better. Serving as “guardians” of the public well-being.

Madison, while envisioning leaders of character, also admitted in Federalist 10 that he was not certain “enlightened statesmen” would “always be at the helm” (he certainly got that right). His goal was to create a system of government that would withstand bad leadership. As valiant as his efforts were to protect our system of government from bad leadership, we must remember that the system is not foolproof. It cannot withstand a prolonged onslaught of leaders with selfish intentions. Leaders who love their own power and position more than they love their country or their fellow countrymen. Our institutions are more fragile than we would like to think. Our rights are more fragile, too. There is a breaking point. The system doesn’t work without men and women of strong character. Let us not dismiss it as inconsequential.

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Last week, King Charles III gave a rather extraordinary speech to Congress. For twenty-eight minutes, he held the chamber captive with his aristocratic accent and his perfectly timed jokes – “The Founding Fathers were bold and imaginative rebels with a cause. 250 years ago (or, as we say in the United Kingdom, just the other day…) they declared Independence.” It was surprisingly substantive and full of reminders about the core tenets of free government.

I will confess I never believed King Charles could fill his mother’s shoes. I have questioned his honor. I have wondered about his seriousness. But perhaps I have underestimated him, because he knew what this moment needed, and he delivered something significant. In this instance, I’m not sure his mother could have done the same. Committed to the dignified and the reserved, Queen Elizabeth II may not have included the subtle preaching, the gentle corrections that the King delivered. Her speech to Congress in 1991 was ten minutes shorter and primarily praise-focused, both of Congress and the President. She said, “I salute the outstanding leadership of your President.” King Charles, while remaining respectful to our President, delivered no such sentence.

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The Queen praised our shared values; the King softly lectured us on the importance of those values. Nestled in a section on British contributions to American ideas of rights, was a reminder about checks on the executive. “The U.S. Supreme Court Historical Society has calculated that Magna Carta is cited in at least 160 Supreme Court cases since 1789, not least as the foundation of the principle that executive power is subject to checks and balances.”

In a year where we have seen an ambitious Chief Executive attempt to wield power unilaterally, the inclusion of this sentence does not feel accidental. I believe it was a deliberate reminder that since 1215, we have established important restraints on chief executives (with various levels of success). This is a bedrock of free societies. How interesting that a person with King in his title would be the one to remind Americans of this essential principle.

Among other important points on pluralism, the importance of having international friends, the defense of Ukraine, and mutual trade, the King also touched on the rule of law and an independent judiciary:

“Our common ideals were not only crucial for liberty and equality, they are also the foundation of our shared prosperity. The rule of law: the certainty of stable and accessible rules, an independent judiciary resolving disputes and delivering impartial justice. These features created the conditions for centuries of unmatched economic growth in our two countries.”

No such reminders about core principles of classical liberalism were included in the Queen’s 1991 address.

The UK has depended on the stability of the United States for its own prosperity and safety since the Great Wars of the 1900s. Now, perhaps for the first time in the modern era, is it possible they see America as unstable? Is our rule of law not respected? Is our judiciary not independent? Is our Executive not checked? The inclusion of these statements gives the impression that the King feels we may be slipping a bit.

He ended with this:

“I pray with all my heart that our alliance will continue to defend our sthat hared values, with our partners in Europe and the Commonwealth, and across the world, and that we ignore the clarion calls to become ever more inward-looking.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice-President, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, America’s words carry weight and meaning, as they have since Independence. The actions of this great nation matter even more.”

The messages were clear. The statements unambiguous, yet delivered with unoffensive gentleness. It was rhetorical brilliance that walked a delicate line. With this address, the King proved himself worthy of his esteemed leadership position. He also proved himself to be the friend the United States needs right now. The friend who sticks with you in good times and bad. And most importantly, the friend who tells the truth.

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In a time of intense government dysfunction, NASA’s Artemis II mission reminds us what American excellence looks like. To launch a manned rocket into space, you must have a thousand things go right. It requires precision. The best scientific minds must work together to get every detail right. They check, double-check, and triple-check every aspect of the plan.

NASA treats its work with a seriousness that has become rare in our culture. Perhaps this seriousness comes from understanding the humiliation and grief that come if something goes wrong. With the Artemis II mission, we are reminded that not only is our government filled with messiness, chaos, and failure, but we are also a nation that can do wondrous things. We can send human beings around the moon.

Political observers understand how unusual it is to find this level of professionalism in a government agency. Even casual political observers know that our politics is filled with chaos. Our leaders often seem ill-equipped for their roles. Many of our current leaders seem built for show business only, not for the hard work necessary for our government to function. There is partisan fighting in abundance, but achievements are few. Week after week, we see failures and feel frustrations. It has even led some to doubt American greatness. To wonder if our extraordinary national experiment will have 250 years and not much more.

There is a line from Reagan’s Challenger address that speaks directly to NASA workers, after the horrific shuttle explosion, that is worth remembering. He says, “Your dedication and professionalism have moved and impressed us for decades. And we know of your anguish. We share it.” Dedication and professionalism are indeed the proper words for NASA. And their dedication and professionalism are moving us again, this time, thankfully, without the tragedy. It is a testament to what happens when you keep moving forward. NASA has had many horrific failures, and yet it persists. It keeps working toward improvements. It keeps daring to try for more.

NASA’s first big challenge came from President Kennedy. Kennedy put a tremendous amount of pressure on NASA to get to the moon. It was not just for the sake of exploration and scientific achievement, but it was an important foreign policy move. Kennedy wanted to send a message to the Soviets. We will be first. We will achieve the most. We are the most powerful. And NASA did it. They achieved the seemingly impossible. And it made our nation so very proud.

Then the Cold War ended, and Americans quickly adjusted to the miraculous achievement as something routine, even ordinary. In the Obama years, the space shuttle program was ended. NASA’s mission was readjusted. Private space exploration grew. Space enthusiasts still followed the moves, but as a public, we moved on. The space program no longer dazzled us. It has become so much harder to be impressed in the modern age.

In 2026, we are in a period very different from the Cold War, but much like that time needed a display of strength, we could use some strength and encouragement today. This mission is coming at an important moment, one where we are wondering as a people who we are and what we stand for. We are having conversations about who and what makes America great. We have different answers depending on what color hat we wear.

One space mission cannot, of course, fix our broken politics. But it is a reminder that our nation can produce excellence. It is this country’s freedom and prosperity that led to this great achievement, this flawless mission, this extraordinary moment. We sent a crew 248,655 miles away from Earth, further than any human being has ever been. An achievement no other nation on earth can boast.

Following their record-breaking moment, astronaut Jeremy Hansen said this, “From the cabin of Integrity here, as we surpass the furthest distance humans have ever traveled from planet Earth, we do so in honoring the extraordinary efforts and feats of our predecessors in human space exploration.” This moment existed because of so many moments before it, including the failures of other missions. Dedication and professionalism gave us this moment. What an incredible reminder of what we can achieve if we continue forward.

American greatness still exists.

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Alexis de Tocqueville, observing early 19th-century American life, wrote of the “habits of the heart” that distinguished everyday Americans from Europeans. These habits were so ingrained in early Americans that they did not appear to Tocqueville to be a conscious choice, but rather an instinctual way of living life as an active citizen. His observation has tremendous relevance today. Our daily individual behavior habits do indeed determine our collective political strength.

I frequently point out political behavior problems on both the right and the left and encourage alternative habits. Unsurprisingly, people do not like to think of themselves as doing anything less than ideal. Bad habits are for other people, mostly those on the other side of the political spectrum. Acknowledging our own weaknesses is hard and requires some humility.

It is popular now to be critical of “both-sides-ism”. The idea that both the right and the left have their difficulties, or that there may be two valid perspectives worth entertaining, is repulsive to some ideological warriors. “Both-side-sim” can give the impression that each side has the same problems and the same level of difficulty with those problems. This is not always true. Both the right and left have political behavior habits that could be improved, but they are not the same.

New political science research indicates that liberals are more likely to end a personal relationship or block a friend online because of their political perspectives.1 They can be quick to cut people out of their lives and justify this out of a sense of moral superiority and righteous indignation. Once, when I suggested on Instagram that you should be friends with people who disagree with you politically, someone sent me a DM telling me I was “Nazi-sympathizing B*tch.”

This particular behavior problem can lead to homogeneous social circles, and when people stay inside their political bubbles, it can be more difficult to understand valid alternative perspectives. It can also lead to an enemy mindset, which at its worst can lead to dehumanization and violence.

Conservatives, on the other hand, were found to have more heterogeneous social networks and were less likely to cut off a relationship because of ideological differences. However, conservatives are more likely to listen to highly partisan news commentary and fall into misinformation pitfalls. The lack of trust in “mainstream” or “legacy” news sources has sent them into the arms of highly partisan news commentary. Sources like Fox News, One American News, and dozens of highly partisan talk-radio and podcast hosts have become a part of their daily information routine. This habit has the enormous downside of skewing their ability to discern good information from misinformation.

Both sides do indeed have habits of the heart, and habits of the mind, that could be improved. And while our behavioral problems may not be the same, all of us, regardless of our ideological leanings, could benefit from a careful assessment of our daily political habits. We should be willing to make improvements. And we should not be so arrogant as to think this only applies to other people.

Our habits of the heart have been stained by intense allegiances to our political parties. But there are some democratic habits or “norms” that have withstood the changing tides. I am asked frequently, with different forms of the question, if I am worried about our country, or if I think we are going to survive. I considered it anew all the time. As our divisions deepen, and the news gets worse, I reevaluate.

One thing continues to bring me hope in our future ability to thrive. We deeply hold on to the belief that we are entitled to certain rights and privileges. 79 percent of Americans reported knowing they have a right to freedom of speech in a 2025 study.2 Even if their understanding of this right was a bit flawed, they know they have this right, and they feel it deeply.

We also feel strongly about the importance of voting. 90 percent of Americans in a Pew Research Survey responded that voting was either “very important” or “somewhat important” to being a good member of society.3 The right to vote is deeply ingrained. I do not believe the people of the United States will ever freely relinquish this right or the expectation of free and fair elections. These rights and privileges are ingrained in us from early ages. This should bring us some comfort in times of rapid political changes and Executive power expansion.

Still, now is not the time to take anything for granted. The small, everyday actions we take will determine the health of our democracy. Liberals, do not shrink your social circle to the point where you exist in an ideological bubble of your own creation. This will only intensify the cycle of polarization. Conservatives, be careful what information you accept as true. Highly partisan commentary is leading to skewed versions of reality. One cannot make good choices with bad information.

We must all do our part to strengthen our habits of the heart.

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The killing of Renee Good by an ICE officer in Minneapolis, and the justifications that came swiftly afterward by some on the right, have been disturbing. What has stayed with me after a week of processing the event, pondering the arguments, watching the videos too many times, is this: partisanship is causing us to neglect our decency, our compassion, our basic humanity.

A woman is dead. Shot three times. Our first reaction should be sorrow. Those on the right who cannot express that basic sentiment as at least a precursor to whatever they want to say next have lost something important. It troubles me. The left has its problems with this, too. Think of the reactions to the murder of the UnitedHealthcare CEO in New York, the “he deserved it” narrative that quickly emerged. Think of the vile things written on social media after the Charlie Kirk killing. It is not a problem exclusively found on the right, but this week it was the right’s turn to show its ugliness.

Human life is sacred. It matters when it is taken away. It is astounding to me how our tribalistic politics has superseded our basic human reaction towards compassion, towards decency. The politics as “war” mindset has overtaken us, with devastating results.

Here is another, less violent, example of the same problem.

Last November, Jean Leising picked her 14-year-old grandson up from basketball practice and noticed he was upset. When she asked him what was wrong, he reluctantly told her that everyone on his team had received text messages about her, and “all of them were bad.” She played it off, told him everything was fine, and apologized. Inside, she says, she was fuming.

In addition to being an involved grandmother of eight, Jean is also a member of the Indiana State Senate. At that moment the Senate was considering a mid-decade redistricting bill at the request of the Trump administration. The pressure campaign was getting intense.

Indiana was the latest state to consider mid-decade Congressional redistricting at the President’s urging. Earlier in 2025, my home state of Texas folded quickly to the President’s pressure. Both chambers of the Texas Legislature approved redistricting maps that significantly upped the gerrymandering game. Texas Republicans are now expected to pick up five additional Congressional seats across the state.

In response to Texas’s mid-decade redistricting, California stepped up their game. Their goal: balance out the additional Republican seats created by Texas by creating more gerrymandered districts that favored Democrats.

Attention then turned to the solidly red state of Indiana where Republicans control both the House, the Senate and the Governorship. Jean Leising voted for Trump three times. She and her husband are farmers, classic rural Republicans. She has a solid Republican voting record in the State Senate. One would think this would be an easy win.

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Jean said she had yet to make up her mind on her vote, when she picked up her 14-year-old grandson that day, but by the end of the evening, she had firmly decided. It would be no. The pressure campaign to influence her vote had taken a step too far. Embarrassing her grandson in front of his teammates crossed a line of ugliness that was unacceptable.

Leising was not the only member of the Indiana state legislature that received pressure. Republican Rep. Ben Smaltz, said “I was threatened to have my family killed in front of me, whereafter I would be killed.” Several Republican Senators were “doxed” with personal information leaked on the internet. This led to fake bomb threats and “swatting” attempts, where law enforcement came in hot to fake emergencies at their homes.

Brett Galaszewski, a twenty-something Turning Point USA Director, vowed to support primary challengers for any senator who voted no. “…and I hope these senators hear me right now when I say these words — if it does not pass, Turning Point Action is willing to throw more money and resources into these primary races than some congressional races.”

The Indiana redistricting bill failed to pass. The negative pressure campaign went too far and backfired. It demonstrated that there are limits on how much you can accomplish with threats and ugliness. Basic human decency still matters.

We are living through intense political times. Times that encourage us to take sides. Times that force us to consider where we stand. But in our saddling up, let us never lose our humanity. Let us never justify the unjustifiable. When partisan allegiance leads to violence, threats, and ugliness, it is an evil we must reject.

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This year was a stress test for our Constitutional system. This was the year Madison tried to anticipate, so many years ago, when he wrote about external and internal controls on government being necessary, because we will not be governed by “angels.” So how did the system hold up?

One part of Madison’s vision, that the branches of government would check each other, because “ambition must be made to counteract ambition,” did not entirely hold. Congress bent a knee to the Executive, a failure years in the making and incredibly disheartening. But the system did hold in two other important places: the Federal Judiciary and the States.

Madison’s idea that ambition will counteract ambition assumes that each branch of government will want to fully exert its own authority. There will be a tug of war, a push and pull, between each branch, as each tries to exert its power. In this way, no one branch will become too powerful.

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Trump’s “ambition” in this first year of his second term was wild. Executive Orders are one place where we saw this. For context, from Reagan to Biden, the average number of Executive orders per year was 35 (Obama) to 55 (Trump 1). In 2025, with less than a full year in office, Trump issued a stunning 225 Executive Orders. This was more than he issued in his entire first term in office. The only President in our history to ever issue more was FDR at the height of the Great Depression.

But the number is less important than the content. Trump took great liberties with his Executive Order powers. He renamed the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. He declared birth-right citizenship over. He targeted specific law firms who he claimed employed people who worked against him in the past, threatening their clients with a loss of government contracts and access. He invented a “Gold Card” for rich immigrants. The list goes on.

He avoided using Congress for new policy-making as much as possible. Why slow down the process when you can simply declare a new policy instead? There are limits to what Executive Orders can do, however, and one big limitation is that they cannot spend money. They also cannot address tax-policy. These powers are expressly given to Congress in Article 1. So, when it came time to extend the Trump first-term tax cuts, he turned to Congress.

Trump appeared to view Congressional power as an extension of his own, and Congress played right along. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who owes his position to Trump’s support for him as Speaker, supplicated himself to the White House as if he was directly on the President’s staff. And here is where Madison’s vision of ambition counteracting ambition broke down. This idea failed because Johnson had no institutional ambition. He felt no sense of power on behalf of the House of Representatives. Both he, and Thune in the Senate, were fine with yielding to the President’s ambition and heeding his instructions.

The places where the system held: the Federal Courts, and the States. There are many examples from the Courts, but one important one was the immediate halt of the Birth-Right Citizenship order. The Executive Order’s enforcement is paused until the Supreme Court can rule on the case sometime next year. This was the Court system’s ambition, their power, checking Executive Power. And this was important, because the issue clearly involved the 14^th Amendment. The Courts knew their role, and they acted accordingly.

The other protection that Madison discusses at length in the Federalist Papers is the division of power between the federal government and the states. Here, the mid-decade push for redistricting is a good example. The Trump administration, worried about the 2026 mid-term elections, pushed Texas to redraw their Congressional lines in the middle of the decade, a highly unusual action. Texas quickly obliged and gerrymandered the state to produce five new Republican districts. Texas’s leaders supplicated themselves to the President without hesitation. But this was not the end of the story.

California responded with their own redistricting efforts, essentially negating the impact of the Texas redrawing. Then Trump’s attention turned to Indiana, where a heavy pressure campaign descended upon Republican state legislators. And here is the remarkable thing, after months of intense political pressure from the White House, threats of primary challenges from groups like Turning Point USA, and phone calls from J.D. Vance, the Indiana State Legislature said no.

Republican State Senator Sue Glick put it this way: “Hoosiers are a hardy lot, and they don’t like to be threatened. They don’t like to be intimidated. They don’t like to be bullied in any fashion. And I think a lot of them responded with, ‘That isn’t going to work. And it didn’t.” Indiana state legislators played their role the way Madison intended, by using their piece of power to decide for themselves. This is how the system was designed to function.

While Congress failed to exert the power given to them as an independent branch of government, two other layers of division of powers held: the Courts and the States. Our Constitutional system proved strong enough for an overly ambitious Executive.

A final consideration –how did we do as a people? Those of us without power or official office? The results are certainly mixed, but I was struck by a few simple things. One is that most Americans have no appetite for cruelty. A Trump voter in New Orleans interviewed recently, remarked that there were some things she liked. She appreciated his closing of the southern border. But she really did not like a recent incident in her hometown where ICE chased a young teenage girl down the street. That seemed unnecessary, she said. She was not comfortable with that.

I think this is where many Trump voters are today, they can acknowledge the good and the bad. And this is important. This means there will be limits on his Executive power. Because the ultimate Executive check is public opinion. It is you and me, it is our friends and neighbors, all looking at the situation and deciding for ourselves, did this go too far?

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I was in Mexico last week. After a sun-filled beach day, I stood with my friends in a security line to board the big cruise ship that would take us home. The security at the port was funded by the cruise line but run by locals. A man in front of us said loudly, “Why doesn’t this line move faster! Don’t they know we are Americans!” My eyes met my friends, wordlessly saying “yikes.”

Because we are Americans, we should not have to go through a security check? Because Americans never try to smuggle things out of Mexico? Maybe he had overconsumed at the beach that day. Maybe he was simply an idiot. But unmistakable was the tone of superiority, the belief that being an American is a superior status. We should receive special respect when we are in Mexico, because we are Americans. American arrogance, it should be plainly stated, is not American patriotism. The two should never be, but too often are, conflated.

What to make of this man? Rude behavior is not a new thing. There will always be people who are arrogant and have bad manners. What is significant about this moment? Perhaps nothing. But it hits me differently right now, and I think it’s because of the loudness. The Red Hat movement has given permission for these types of comments to be made without embarrassment.

American pride, in the MAGA way of thinking, has been twisted into a type of bold arrogance. It is not love of country; it is love of superiority. It is the love of putting everyone else in their proper place, below. America First, as a slogan, initially meant let’s put America’s needs first before helping other countries. Now it seems to say, “Don’t you know we could blow your boat out of the water anytime we want?”

This arrogance will come at a cost, and the cost is global friends. Like it or not, we do need friends in the world. No nation is entirely self-sufficient on its own. No country is entirely safe all by itself either.

What is true patriotism? A genuine love of country and a desire to see her thrive. Loyalty, even in tough times. And here is where some on the left should pay attention: patriotism is loving your country, even with its warts and pimples and ugly, deep scars. You do not run to another country when times get tough. You do not condemn your nation on the world stage. You acknowledge its difficulties; it’s wrong doings, it’s serious problems. Then you ask, how can I make it better?

I have been lucky enough to travel many places outside the U.S. There are cities that have stunning architecture, like Prague. There are islands with magical sunsets, like Roatan. There are places in Europe where chocolate tastes unlike anything I’ve experienced in the States. There is beauty outside the borders of the United States. There is brilliance too. But every time I leave, I am always happy to come home. Because this land is my land, and I love her, even when I don’t love her leaders. I love her in good times and bad times. I love her bold idea.

Yes, we are indeed superior to many places on earth. We are superior because of our freedom, and the incredible wealth and power that has come from this freedom. But this superiority is not guaranteed forever. We could lose it. We need to understand that.

Here I end up where I often do, with our actions. America needs our help. Those that have benefited from her cannot take a passive, passing glance at our government. We cannot assume enlightened statesmen are at the helm. We cannot assume someone else will take care of the problems. We need to step up now. We need to contribute whatever we can. In small, patient conversations. In reading the news we would rather avoid. In waiting in that polling-place line or calling that representative. In teaching our children virtue, service, and civics. In running for office. In writing that op-ed. In each small act of service to our community, to our neighbor.

If not us, then who?

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This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York island,
From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters;
This land was made for you and me.

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The holiday season can be a wonderful time of gathering with family and friends we do not often see. But with the joy of seeing loved ones, tension can also come, especially if there are strong differences in political opinions. In our everyday life, we can limit the exposure we have to the “other side”. We can skip lunch with the co-worker who has the bumper sticker we don’t like. We can choose to lean into social circles based on our similarity in beliefs. During the holidays, we see people we do not always see, and we are exposed to opinions we might not usually hear. Holidays can force people, uncomfortably, to get outside their political bubbles. In an age of political polarization, this can be miserable. I have a mindset trick that can help.

Our first instinct when we hear an opinion come up that we do not agree with is to combat it with our own (obviously more correct) opinion. In a time where real lives have been hurt by our politics, we may even feel a spirit of righteous defense. We feel obligated to swat down opinions we feel are dangerous or stupid. We can feel it is our duty to respond, our responsibility to point out where they are wrong.

Here’s the thing: our MAGA uncle, or liberal niece, did not show up for this holiday gathering to be told how wrong they are about everything. Pointing out their logical failures or incorrect facts is not likely to go over very well. Instead of adopting the Defender-of-Truth mindset, I encourage you to take a Curious-Investigator approach. Rather than leaning into verbal combat, try pressing them for more details the way a reporter would press a source for more information.

Try questions like: “What would success look like to you?” “Do you have any concerns about the side effects of the policy?” “What do you think will happen after…” “Are there any things you like about…?” The questions should be genuine. Not gotcha questions. Not leading questions. Real displays of curiosity. Because the goal is not to put them in their place. The goal is to learn more about the way they think and the information they have.

Sometimes we are certain we understand the opposing point of view. We make assumptions about what people believe who vote a certain way or who defend a certain ghastly politician. This certainty may hinder us from a true understanding of their rationale. Monica Guzman, an expert at disagreeing with civility, puts it this way:

“Certainty is the archvillain of curiosity. If you think you know, you won’t think to ask.”

Curiosity is the secret ingredient in the recipe for a good conversation, whatever the topic. And it is a powerful substitute for judgment.

If you cannot completely let go of the Defender-of-Truth instinct, keep in mind that asking thoughtful questions can help the other person clarify their perspectives. Remember that in our partisan information environment, the other person may not have heard questions like the ones you have. They may not have been pushed to go deeper on an issue. Or forced to think about it from a different angle. By asking thoughtful, genuine questions, you could help them reevaluate their opinion. The reality is that verbal spats and one-upmanship typically lead people to stay entrenched in their views. Having a good dialogue where you explore the issue may, potentially, lead to a change of heart. So if you really care about persuasion, lean into Curious-Investigator mode. Maybe it will help, maybe it won’t, but it is certainly your best shot.

One crucial tip about timing. There is political science research that suggests a good conversation on a specific issue can increase political sophistication for all parties involved. Most studies conclude, however, that this only happens in small group settings or one-on-one conversations. If your holiday gathering is large, the best strategy can be to save the conversation for later. Timing is an important component. If you cannot have a good conversation because Mom wants you to fill up the water glasses and get the kids to sit down, save the conversation for later. If your brother-in-law drops a big political statement around a crowded kitchen counter, you could say something like “that’s really interesting, maybe we could chat about that later.” Have a one-on-one after things calm down, rather than attempting a serious conversation in the middle of festivities.

Staying in our political bubbles leads to intensified political tribalism. This is not good for us as individuals, and it is not good for the nation. So, as uncomfortable as it may be to have politics come up at holiday gatherings, it is an opportunity to step out of our normal information environments. Lean into the Curious-Investigator mindset. Ask questions. Be genuine. And above all, remember to show grace.

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It is going to be a rough week for the eight Senators who voted to end the 41-day standoff with Republicans over funding the government. Americans do not appreciate weakness in their leaders, and this move looks like pure weakness. The longest shutdown in our nation’s history, and nothing gained. Democrats are understandably upset. But what if these Senators are not actually weak? What if they are the only ones willing to acknowledge that the situation on the ground changed, and so their strategy needed to change too?

The suffering was getting worse, much worse every day, and they stopped it. If there was no compromise to be had, then the sooner the shutdown ended, the sooner the suffering would end. Is it possible that the only win in this bad situation was to end the pain and revert to the original status quo? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Here, a thousand different political assessments can be debated.

A hard truth we need to acknowledge: governing in a republic requires compromise. This is a truth that candidates would never dare to whisper on the campaign trail. American voters would never tolerate the slightest hint of compromising with the enemy (the enemy being fellow Americans with a different political jersey).

Leaders of the past seemed to understand that you campaign with bold, uncompromising rhetoric, but then you get to work negotiating once the session begins. Behind closed doors, negotiations were a part of the job. Governing in a legislative-based system of government requires working with political opponents.

Legislatures are designed to require working together. When this stops, governing stops. Unless one party holds the Presidency, the House, and a 60-vote majority in the Senate, they will not be able to get a hundred percent of what they want. Even when one party controls the government by a large majority, compromise is often required because members of that party have variations in what they want to see happen. Congress is a deliberative body that requires compromise.

Good legislators understand that compromising does not mean surrendering their principles. It means holding fast to those principles, but acting toward them in a pragmatic way. Understanding that governing is different than campaigning. Understanding that to get to one’s ideal outcome, there may have to be baby steps toward that goal. The general rule for a good political compromise is this: Did the deal advance your cause beyond the status quo? Even if it was the tiniest move in the right direction? If so, then it is worth doing.

With this deal to end the shutdown, did the Democrats advance their cause beyond the status quo? Objectively no. All they received for their capitulation was the promise of a scheduled vote in the Senate on extending subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, a vote that all careful political observers know will end in defeat. Nothing gained. Not even one baby step toward their goal.

But here’s the thing —the nation was no longer at the same point as we were forty-one days before. Forty-one days ago, we had working airports, military families getting paid on time, and hungry kids getting SNAP groceries. The situation on the ground has dramatically declined in the last forty-one days.

We also learned that Trump was okay with this decline. His approach was to let this situation play out as long as needed. He wanted FAA workers to continue showing up to work after two missed paychecks. Accusing them of being unpatriotic for taking days off:

“For those that did nothing but complain, and took time off, even though everyone knew they would be paid, IN FULL, shortly into the future, I am NOT HAPPY WITH YOU. You didn’t step up to help the U.S.A. against the FAKE DEMOCRAT ATTACK that was only meant to hurt our Country. You will have a negative mark, at least in my mind, against your record. If you want to leave service in the near future, please do not hesitate to do so, with NO payment or severance of any kind! You will be quickly replaced by true Patriots, who will do a better job…”

There was no acknowledgement of how difficult it is for these workers to continue working while not being paid. No understanding that short-term financial needs may be pressing and incredibly stressful. No acknowledgement that some of these workers called out because they needed to pick up shifts as Uber drivers to buy groceries.

He was okay with SNAP payments running out. He did not look for ways to continue making these payments. He insisted they stop. Low-income families, who may quite literally go hungry, made no emotional impact on him. None of the suffering this shutdown was causing seemed to affect him. What we learned is that he would have let this play out for a long time, and Republicans in Congress were unwilling to negotiate without Trump’s blessing.

So, another way to look at this is that these eight Senators were acknowledging reality. They could not move beyond the original status quo to advance their cause. They could only stop the current situation from continuing to decline. They could only reverse the damage. The damage that was becoming worse by the day.

There are no winners here. This government shutdown revealed the deep dysfunction of our American politics. A dysfunction that is rotting the system away. A republic that is sick with the disease of negative partisanship.

The lesson for us is to stop electing men and women who refuse to compromise in the normal way that governing requires. We must be smart enough to know that good governance in a legislative system requires compromise. This means the candidates we elect need to have reputations of people who operate in good faith. It also means that we, the people, understand a good compromise is one that advances the status quo in the right direction. Even if the wins are small.

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In a political environment where it is hard to be shocked, the leaked Young Republican group chat still stopped us in our tracks. References to Hitler, gas chambers, rape, and the n-word all appeared in a group chat that included top leaders of the Young Republican National Federation across at least four states.1 It was bad, and it deserved the harsh reprimand many fellow Republicans gave it.

One prominent Republican leader, however, was notably absent from the chorus of rebukes. Vice President Vance refused to offer any direct criticism of the young activists. His unusual and highly troubling response is difficult to understand until you view it through the lens of political tribalism.

A few facts about the incident: the members of the Young Republican group were not children. Their ages ranged from 18 to 40. They were using this language against their own fellow Young Republicans in an internal fight for leadership. The text thread included both female and male party members.

Reading through the messages, you get a sense of immature young adults attempting to demonstrate toughness. One-upping one another with how far they would go to punish their enemies. It is mind-blowing to read the causal references to pure evil. You are left wondering —did they not receive proper history education? Have they never watched Schindler’s List or read the Diary of Anne Frank? What went wrong with their upbringing to lead them to this place?

The Nazi Germany regime inflicted unimaginable pain on millions across the globe. Flirting with an American version of neo-Nazi culture demonstrates, at minimum, poor character.

Most Republican elected officials quickly denounced the language used in the chat, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who requested the White House pull the nomination of Paul Ingrassia, one of the men involved. The President had nominated Ingrassia to head the U.S. Special Counsel’s Office.

It is worth noting that Ingrassia already had a concerning history of inappropriate comments, including calling the October 7^th attack on Israel a “psyop” and that January 6^th should be a national holiday. He was nominated by the White House anyway.

Instead of rebuking the language used in the group chat, Vice President Vance first called them young boys:

“The reality is that kids do stupid things, especially young boys. They tell edgy, offensive jokes. Like, that’s what kids do. And I really don’t want us to grow up in a country where a kid telling a stupid joke - telling a very offensive stupid joke - is cause to ruin their lives.”

This type of redefining the incident is typical of Vance. He frequently alters the narrative and then responds to the altered version. Here, he is defining the people involved as young boys. They were not. The worst offenders on the chat have thick facial hair. He also changes the nature of the text messages, downgrading them to “jokes.” They were not simply jokes. They were venting anger at their opponents.

In later comments, he pivoted to a “whataboutism” strategy, referencing the leaked text message of a Virginia Democratic candidate as being “far worse”, then saying, “I refuse to join the pearl clutching when powerful people call for political violence.”

A simple denouncement of the messages would have been just fine. All that was needed was a short “This type of language does not represent the values of the Republican Party. It has no place in the Young Republican Federation.” This was not a difficult political moment. The response should have been easy.

Instead, Vance seems to instinctively want to defend these men. What Vance is telling us is that it does not matter what was said, because these men are on the right team, his team, and he will not rebuke a member of his own team. In this intense tribalistic mindset, criticism of one’s own tribe member is viewed as aiding the enemy. A rebuke of these men would, in his mind, give a win to the left. And above all, no wins can be given to the other team.

While it is tempting to dwell on Vance’s failure, the incident reveals more than just bad leadership. It demonstrates how prevalent tribalism is in our nation. The “us vs. them” mindset has trickled down into the lives of everyday Americans. We think of our political opponents as enemies. We wish them ill.

Tribalism, quite simply, leads to bad political behavior. We are inclined to overlook major flaws in our tribe while exaggerating the flaws in the other. Tribalism leads to rejoicing when the other side suffers. It leads to justifications of political violence. It causes one to suspend logic. It is an animalistic tendency. One that contributes to a fracturing society.

While tribalistic tendencies in politics are not something brand new, what is different in this political moment is our leaders’ open embrace of it. They should be holding us back from this mindset. Encouraging unity. Condemning vile language. Calling out bad behavior. Instead, we have tribalistic mindsets at the highest levels of our government.

It is up to us, then, to lead from the bottom up. We, the everyday Americans, with only the power of our words and our vote, can break the terrible trend of political tribalism. We can recognize it. We can call it out. We can insist our leaders do better. We can tell them we do indeed care about rejecting neo-Nazi language. We can encourage them to do the same.

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Vivek Ramaswamy was a headline speaker at a Turning Point USA event in Montana last week. Ramaswamy, who is currently running for governor of Ohio, is a professed Hindu. During the question-and-answer session he faced tough questions from young Christian students about his eligibility for office. One sharped tongued young man put it this way:

“If you are an Indian, a Hindu, coming from a different culture, different religion than those who founded this country, those who grew this country, built this country, made this country the beautiful thing that it is today,” he continued. “What are you conserving? You are bringing change. I’ll be 100 percent honest with you—Christianity is the one truth.”

His question was one of many that pointed to Ramaswamy’s faith as a disqualifying factor for his candidacy.

While not all founders were practicing Christians, Protestant Christianity was indeed the dominant religion at the time of the founding of the United States. Six state constitutions included Christianity as an essential qualification for being a state office holder. John Adams, the primary author of the Massachusetts Constitution, explicitly included being a professed Christian as mandatory for holding a House or Senate seat in Massachusetts, and added a specific religious oath for the Governor. “That I believe and profess the Christian religion, from a firm persuasion of its truth…”

The Turning Point student in Montana specifically mentions Ramaswamy’s Hindu faith, a “different religion than those who founded this country,” as an anti-conservative attribute, “you are bringing change.” The not-so-subtle implication is that Ramaswamy’s faith is a disqualifying factor for public office. As an individual voter, the student is free to see this as a disqualifying factor for his personal vote choice, but it is important to note that the U.S. Constitution does not disqualify Ramaswamy from holding public office.

Many of the state Constitutions that included religious qualifications for public office were written in 1776, with John Adams’s Massachusetts Constitution coming four years later, in 1780. The U.S. Constitutional Convention took place in 1787. The timeline here is important because it means that the delegates to the Convention would have been very familiar with the idea of religious oaths for public office. Instead of choosing to follow this state constitutional trend, they rejected it. Not only did they omit a requirement for religious oaths, they also included a specific provision against them. Here’s the language from Article VI:

“The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

At a time when almost half of the state constitutions required religious oaths, the U.S. Constitution went in the opposite direction.

The oath would be to the Constitution. No religious test required. Five years later, the first Congress under the U.S. Constitution would add the First Amendment, solidifying the right to free exercise of religion and prohibiting Congress from making any law establishing an official religion of the United States.

A proper understanding of religion and the U.S. Constitution is that it protects the freedom of conscience. That each American is free to worship God in the way they feel personally convicted to worship. Americans are also free not to worship; nothing in the U.S. mandates this action.

James Madison, the primary architect of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, wrote that a belief in “God all-powerful and wise and good…[is] essential to the moral order of the World and to the happiness of man.”[1]. He recognized that religion and morality were essential to a flourishing, healthy society. He also believed that religion would thrive when the government stayed out of it. The guiding principle for Madison was freedom. Each person should have the freedom to live according to their own beliefs.

Later in life, reflecting on how Christianity was thriving in the United States, he sees this as proof that the government-hands-off approach was correct. In his way of thinking, a theocracy did not lead to thriving religious practice, because forced religion would never lead to pure convictions. He rebukes “well-meaning Christians” who would use the law to mandate religious practice. He wrote, “The experience of the United States is a happy disproof of the error so long rooted in the unenlightened minds of well-meaning Christians.”[2]

Christians may choose to vote exclusively for other Christians. There may also be times when it is fitting to cast a vote for another candidate. That choice is personal, and Christians should thoughtfully, intellectually, and prayerfully consider their vote choices. But let us never forget, it is the freedom to freely worship that allows true Christian beliefs to thrive. Our guiding principle should be to always respect the right of each American to practice their religion freely.

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[1] Madison Letter to Beasley, 20 November 1825

[2] Madison to Schaeffer, 3 December 1821

It has been said that the best thing a writer can do is “write clear and hard about what hurts.” This phrase is often attributed to Ernest Hemingway, whose direct style of prose changed the American literature scene forever. There is no historical record of him saying this, but one could imagine him sitting on a Key West dock with his fishing pole, a little drunk in the afternoon, giving this advice to a young person sitting next him. In this political moment, what is clear, hard, and hurts so badly is the mindset that we are at war with one another. Not with a foreign enemy, but with ourselves. The mindset that there are Americans who are enemies of America.

No longer does the idea of a domestic enemy only refer to people like Timothy McVeigh, Dylan Roof, or Ted Kaczynski. Now it is used broadly for entire groups of people who possess a different worldview or ideology. The “enemy from within” language is deliberately vague, leaving people to fill in their own blanks. What we know is that “they” want to destroy America, and “they” sound pretty darn bad. The monster grows in our minds as we imagine an evil group of people working against everything we know and love.

Some war language has always been used in politics, think “the war on poverty” or “the war on drugs.” But when Steve Bannon now says, “We’re at war. This is war. They want to destroy everything we stand for,” it feels strangely more intense. It leaves one with the impression that there is an actual, physical battle on the horizon. Consider a few other phrases that are now not uncommon to hear in a political speech: “the enemy from within,” “they hate our country,” “evil people,” and “they want to destroy America.” These phrases represent more than just polarizing rhetoric; they represent an antagonistic mindset. A mindset that says my opponent is evil and needs to be eliminated.

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This mindset stands in stark contrast with the idea of pluralism that has been a core part of the success of this nation for generations. James Madison wrote about this in Federalist #10, where he famously argued that in free societies, there will always be disagreements: “Liberty is to faction, what air is to fire.” The goal is not to eliminate factions, because the only way to do that is to extinguish freedom of opinion. Unified public opinion only exists in authoritarian regimes.

While this is easy to understand in theory, the intellectual exercise becomes quite a bit harder when you are facing opinions that disgust you in real life. Picture the political group you respect the least in today’s society and try applying this principle of pluralism. It can be difficult to be consistent. Some opinions are so very vile and upsetting that we wish we could eliminate them from society. Neo-Nazis, for example, are a group with a way of thinking that I find disgusting. I think the country would be better off without their opinions and perspectives. However, consistency with the principle of pluralism requires that I allow them to live freely in society. They may have their assemblies and their speeches. They may have their repulsive opinions.

There is a line that is crossed, however, when hateful opinions turn into actual violence and law-breaking. When Neo-Nazi’s planned to attack Maryland’s power grid, targeting black neighborhoods, as happened in 2025, they needed to be arrested. When opinions become actions that harm communities, this becomes a different concept entirely. No longer does Madison’s pluralism principle apply. No longer is it simply a disagreement in principle. It is a harmful action. Those actions must be punished under the law.

Acts of violence should not be tolerated in society. Political ideas and perspectives, however, must be. Tyler Robinson, Charlie Kirk’s killer, can appropriately be labeled an enemy to Americans. The “radical left,” however, should not. One is an individual who committed an act of brutal violence. The other is a group with a certain ideological perspectives. While Robinson may be an enemy, the “left” or whoever your monstrous “they” may be, should be viewed as political opponents. Madison’s principle of pluralism requires us to tolerate differences of opinion in society, however uncomfortable it may be. To preserve liberty, we must not treat political differences as war.

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There are consequences to speaking your mind in a time of significant political division. In the last two weeks alone, we’ve seen ABC’s decision to suspend, then unsuspend, Jimmy Kimmel, the resignation of the President of Texas A&M University, and reports of dozens of people fired from their jobs because of words they typed on social media in the aftermath of the Kirk killing. These examples are not alike in their details, but they are alike in one important aspect: they all involve public expressions on political topics.

There are undeniable consequences to speaking your mind publicly right now, in a way that feels different than ten years ago. As someone who does public-facing political work, I’ve thought a lot about the significance of these consequences. Speaking publicly about politics is not without risk, and I know many in my field who are legitimately afraid right now. To fear personal consequences is rational, but leaning into that fear is not helpful. It is not good for us as citizens, and it is not good for society. We must continue to speak truth with clear voices, and give opinions thoughtfully, with wisdom and courage.

At the beginning of every Fall semester, I have the privilege of teaching the U.S. Constitution to freshman and sophomore college students. One of my favorite classes of the year is when we talk about the 1^st Amendment. Five incredible rights are packed into that Amendment: religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition. I encourage my students to memorize these, because these five rights are essential to a free society. They represent the ability to express one’s core beliefs.

The 1st Amendment begins, “Congress shall make no law…” The principle unambiguously restricts the federal government from passing laws that would inhibit the five basic expressions of one’s conscience. Congress passing a law to restrict the opposition from speaking its mind, through any medium, television, social media, news publications, would be a clear legal violation of the 1^st Amendment. Many students are surprised to learn, however, that the 1^st Amendment right to freedom of speech does not extend to the private sector.

A 2025 Civic Knowledge study by the Annenberg Public Policy Center found that 79% of Americans could name freedom of speech as a 1^st Amendment right. However, 53% of Americans incorrectly thought that the Amendment’s protection of freedom of speech means Facebook must permit all Americans to freely express themselves on Facebook pages. This shows us that the principle of freedom of speech has been embedded in our society as a democratic norm, even if the legal implications are sometimes misunderstood.

Perhaps it was this misunderstanding that led to so many losing their jobs after the Kirk assassination. Those with negative opinions about Kirk took to social media in the moments after the assassination and voiced variations of insensitive, sometimes vile, statements about him. Some employers decided to terminate those employees, and in most cases, they were within their legal right to do so. The 1^st Amendment does not legally protect you from losing your job because of what you say publicly.

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These firings, cancellations, and forced resignations have led to a spirit of fear among many I know who speak publicly about politics in the classroom, in their writing, and on their social media accounts. There are financial and social risks to saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, more so than in decades past. Fear is contagious, and the number of people who are afraid is growing. Not only are public-facing people worried, but their bosses are worried too. We’ve seen network heads concerned about government scrutiny, businesses worried about profit losses, and universities scared that what their faculty say in the classroom may end up on the news. These fears are not without merit because the consequences of having an “incident” can be quite painful for everyone involved.

Considering consequences is wise and prudent, but we must also consider this: what type of society are we if we succumb to these fears? Who benefits from this fearfulness? Not us, and certainly not a free society. The only people who benefit from our being afraid are those who try to control us with this fear. In the face of intimidation, social, financial, or otherwise, we need to show acts of courage.

These acts should not be done with callousness or foolishness. Praising the Kirk assassination on social media does not show political courage. Giving voice to your inner political irritations at inappropriate times is not brave. In a time where every voice of opposition is heavily scrutinized, we must speak truth with love, dignity, and wisdom. But we must continue to speak.

As we face this new age of intense public scrutiny of public expression, I am reminded of the words Ronald Reagan spoke to the nation after the Challenger explosion thirty-nine years ago: “The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave.” Let’s continue to express ourselves freely, with clarity, wisdom, and courage. The future, my friends, belongs to the brave.

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I overheard a psychology professor tell someone recently “You are maximizing what I said.” This was a response to one of those complaints that starts out with “So you’re telling me…” and ends with a twisted, worst-case summary of what was said. Now that phrase pops into my head all the time. You are maximizing. This phrase seems especially appropriate for today’s political climate. We have example after example of elected officials maximizing every inch of the power they have been given, and a citizenry that seems to be applauding these maximizations. When politics is increasingly seen as war, maximization is viewed as boldness, when it should be considered recklessness.

A recent example from Texas: after House Democrats fled the state to prevent a controversial redistricting vote, the Texas House Speaker mandated that all Democratic members who returned to the floor after their quorum break sign a permission slip to leave the House chamber. The permission slip also gave consent for Texas State Troopers to follow them to their homes and monitor them. One member refused to sign and was locked in the chamber overnight. She was guarded by dozens of state troopers. Every inch of power granted by the Texas Constitution to the House Speaker to compel a quorum was exercised to its fullest extent.

One could also argue that the reason why the Texas House was meeting in the first place was an exercise in maximizing power. They were meeting in a special session specifically to pass a mid-decade redistricting plan. There is nothing in either the U.S. or Texas Constitution that forbids them from redistricting mid-decade, but it is highly unusual. It is outside the normal, post-census, every ten-year process. They were taking power they legitimately have and running with it.

The opposite of maximizing is showing restraint. In political science literature, the term for this is institutional forbearance. Institutional forbearance is about holding back. The President or Congress has the legal ability to exert power, but they choose not to exercise this power to the fullest extent. Instead of maximizing, they show restraint.

Institutional forbearance would be a Democratic Majority in the House of Representatives having the votes to impeach Trump, but choosing not to move forward with a vote, in the interest of national unity. Institutional forbearance would be a President who could legally send National Guard troops to patrol the streets of Washington D.C., but does not, because the show of force would be troubling. Institutional forbearance is showing restraint for the good of the people.

This type of institutional restraint has been a part of our American tradition from the earliest days of the Republic. Think of George Washington, and all the Presidents after him, until Franklin D. Roosevelt, who were not term-limited by law, but chose to step down after two terms. Think of how, from 1868 until 1998, the House of Representatives did not impeach a President. Institutional restraint is arguably one of the reasons our American government has been successful. Institutional restraint is an unwritten rule in our American politics. It is an essential part of America’s success story.

Lately, however, the tradition of institutional restraint has been dismissed as weakness. Our elected officials, with the encouragement of their party loyalists, boast about using the full extent of their power. They use language that brags about their maximization. Politics is viewed as war, and every resource should be viewed to fight the enemy.

After the horrific assassination of Charlie Kirk, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller doubled down on the idea that we are at war. Saying he would use every resource at his disposal to dismantle left-wing groups who may have encouraged hatred of Kirk. He called left-wing organizations “a vast domestic terror movement.” He went on to say:

“With God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people...”

Stephen Miller is making it clear that he will use every ounce of power he has to fight the war against the radical left.

Watching the growth of the maximizing power trend teaches us two important lessons. First, the idea of politics as war only causes problems. In times of war, anything goes. We are much less inclined to encourage restraint and much more inclined to excuse, or even reward, our leaders for maximizing their power. When everything is war, everything is an emergency. This mindset encourages maximum displays of power. As citizens, we should reject the war mindset and avoid rewarding elected officials who maximize their power.

The second, perhaps most important lesson is that the people in power matter. The people we choose to lead us must be men and women who have enough personal character and wisdom to exercise restraint. It is restraint, not maximizing, that has given us success as a nation. For a free society to flourish, we need to encourage leaders who exercise restraint, and we need to reward this at the ballot box. Restraint is boldness; maximizing is recklessness.

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The most unpopular thing I say on the internet is that you can be friends and disagree politically. I get instant push-back. “How can I be friends with someone who does not share my values?” “How can I be friends with people who do not value human rights?” Or “This was possible in the past, it isn’t anymore.” Frankly, I understand. It is harder than it used to be, and these are legitimate responses. However, a big part of stopping the increase of political division is keeping the human element alive. Recognizing that good people can see a situation in different ways. Seeing and acknowledging this humanity in others requires us to know them.

We are a fractured society. Our political divisions keep growing. Increasingly, we want to stay in our safe circles. We only watch, listen, or scroll news from sources that we know align with our political side. We only dare to bring up politics if we know our friend is going to agree with our perspective. We only follow social media accounts that reinforce our existing beliefs. It is incredibly easy to be insulated from alternative viewpoints if you want to be.

The more we stay in our circle, our bubble, the safety and comfort of our distinct spaces, the easier it is to start believing things about the other side that may not be true. In my position as a political science instructor, I talk to many people about politics. People on both sides of the political divide. And I can tell you, with absolute certainty, that there are good people, salt-of-the-earth people, with great personal values, on both sides of the political spectrum. They have come to different conclusions about politics, some with good reasoning and logic, others with terribly misinformed and uneducated reasoning. Some with views I think are morally wrong. Some with views I think are highly destructive to the country. Views I will argue strongly against. However, and here is where I lose many people, I believe that making bad political choices does not necessarily mean these people have a bad heart.

In the summer of 2024, I was walking in my neighborhood, and I saw something that stopped me in my tracks. A homeowner was flying a United States flag upside down. This was right after Trump was found guilty by a New York jury of several dozen felony counts related to hush-money payments given to porn-star Stormy Daniels. Although I do not know for certain, I assumed this homeowner was protesting the verdict by flying the flag upside down.

I was horrified and sad. To have the great symbol of our nation, the flag that so many have died to hold up, turned upside down because of a perceived injustice to a politician –my heart swelled with sadness. I was curious if the homeowner would keep the flag upside down for the approaching anniversary of D-Day. He did. I was sad again, and I’ll be honest, a bit angry.

A week later, I was out walking at dusk, and I saw a stray dog, old and confused, bumping into things. I looked around, and there was no one with him. I made my way over and checked the collar. His home was down the street. I started guiding this big, old dog gently down the street by her collar. I was hunched over uncomfortably. I did not have a leash. As I got closer to the house with the upside-down flag, a big man with a long white beard pulled into the driveway and got out of his car. He stared directly at me. Please don’t talk to me, I thought, I don’t want to talk to you. He disappeared into his garage and came back moments later with a dog leash.

“Here, this might help you. I know where this old baby lives. She’s blind and deaf. I’ve rescued her a few times myself.”

In that moment, I was humbled. This man, whom I had filled in so many blanks about, whom I had been so furious with, whom I had judged for disrespecting our country with his disrespect for our flag, this man was extending a kindness toward me. What’s more, it seems he had extended kindness towards this blind dog and her owners on a few occasions. To steal from Walt Whitman, this man was large; he contained multitudes. He was not the sum total of his decision to fly the flag upside down.

There can be many reasons a person with a good heart arrives at political conclusions that are very bad. There can be problems with their civic education, their sources of information, or their partisan influences. Perhaps their values, ones that may not be so different from yours, are leading them to different conclusions. How can we know how they came up with their views if we never talk to them? If we cut them out of our social circle? If we unfollow them on social media? Doing that instantly closes the door to understanding why they think the way they do.

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It is easy, if you never interact with someone from the “other side,” to start believing the very worst about their intentions. Author and journalist Monica Guzman put it this way:

“Whoever is underrepresented in your life will be overrepresented in your imagination. Instead of people, you'll see monsters. Instead of possibilities, you'll see disasters. That's the challenge of a polarized world.”

It is easy to make assumptions, the very worst assumptions, about people with whom you never interact.

Even in these hard times, there is value in keeping friends from the other side of the aisle. It can keep you from assuming the very worst. It can supply you with explanations you may not have thought about. You can learn who they are listening to, what they are watching, and who they are following on social media. It gives you an opportunity to learn. It gives you an opportunity to push back. It can prevent heartache. Too many families are damaged because of political arguments. And when this age of intense division passes, as I believe it will, many will be left without the family and friends they had before.

If you are still hesitant, because to hell with those family members, you didn’t really like them much to begin with, think about the benefit, not for yourself, but for our society. Our country will continue to deepen its divisions if we stay this course. We will continue to sort ourselves into “us vs them” groups. And the already deep polarization will continue to get worse. Political polarization has all kinds of negative impacts on society. Beginning with this important one: it makes it much harder to govern. Good public policy comes from representatives who work together to study an issue and then act in a way that benefits everyone. In a polarized society it becomes a “winner-take-all” system. When a group is in power, they get what they want, even if it is more extreme, and benefits fewer people. The effects of polarization can be devastating for good governance.

Of course, common sense plays a role in this. If someone has truly become hateful or their values have been revealed to be severely lacking, then perhaps it is time to say goodbye. We should never put ourselves in a physically dangerous or emotionally abusive situation. There are times when common sense may dictate that you cut someone out of your life. But this, in many ways, is a separate topic. Because at that point, the threat of violence or verbal abuse is about more than politics. It is about their personhood. Their approach to others. Their vileness. Humanity’s dark side can reveal itself in many ways, with many catalysts. It is not unique to politics.

We must continue to talk to each other, to know each other, to default to grace whenever we can. I encourage you to give your friend the benefit of the doubt. To still talk to the parents who voted differently from how you did. To still eat lunch with the co-worker who has the bumper sticker you hate. To wave hello to the neighbor with the upside-down flag. In doing these small things, we can stop seeing each other as monsters. We can avoid making the very worst assumptions about one another. We can help our country stop the horrible slide into a more deeply divided society.

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