Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Rather than a people with a common dream and shared understanding of constitutional (federal and state) roots and values, American democracy is devolving into aggressive tribalist factions—where loyalty to the party supersedes that to the nation and, for one group, loyalty to a person trumps everything else—including the truth.
Peter Turchin’s latest book, End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration, is receiving glowing reviews. Its message is highly relevant to our collective understanding of the emerging global polycrisis and what needs to be done to minimize it.
Today, Nate is joined by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. Professor Haidt is one of the leaders in the understanding of human biases and predispositions, and how they affect cooperation, communication, and change-making.
But the current juncture has created a moment loaded with potential, in which the unprecedented alignment of evangelicalism with the Republican right is being shaken — at least at the margins — and new possibilities are emerging.
There are no shades of gray in today’s politics. It means that most policy discussions are binary — red or blue — and incapable of compromise. It shouldn’t be that way. If it continues this way, the consequences will be enormous.
What will Joe Biden be remembered for? It likely depends on the fate of two pieces of legislation that encompass nearly the entirety of his once-in-a-generation agenda, including infrastructure, climate, voter rights, higher taxes for the wealthy, equal justice for people of color and low incomes, healthcare, and greater assistance for low-income families and children.
In the past, socio-political fires like this have usually burned themselves out eventually—but not before a lot of people got hurt.
Michelle Singletary is an author and award-winning personal finance columnist. She writes the nationally syndicated personal finance column “The Color of Money”, which appears in The Washington Post. She addresses the question of “What Could Possibly Go Right?”
A year more of gridlock on climate matters, including green infrastructure, would not only bring the nation closer to crossing the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold scientists warn of, but it could well fracture the Democratic Party.
