Category: Society & Citizenship

For the community of conservative thinkers and experts, and more importantly, conservative politicians, this is a testing time. Either you stand up for your principles and for what you know is decent behavior, or you go down, if not now, then years from now, as a coward or opportunist. Your reputation will never recover, nor should it.

all can dedicate themselves to restoring the qualities upon which this republic, like all republics depends: on reverence for the truth; on a sober patriotism grounded in duty, moderation, respect for law, commitment to tradition, knowledge of our history, and open-mindedness.

Source: Eliot A. Cohen Responds to Donald Trump’s First Week – The Atlantic

Most people aren’t looking to self-segregate, but they do it anyway in an age of military privatization and social media on college campuses

The US can only function as a healthy democracy if we find a way to diversify our social connections, if we find a way to weave together a strong social fabric that bridges ties across difference. Right now, we are moving in the opposite direction with serious consequences.

By and large, the American public wants to have strong connections across divisions. They see the value in it, politically and socially. But they’re not going to work for it. And given the option, they’re going to renew their license remotely, try to get out of jury duty, and use available data to seek out housing and schools that are filled with people like them.

If we want to develop a healthy democracy, we need a diverse and highly connected social fabric. This requires creating contexts in which the American public voluntarily struggles with the challenges of diversity to build bonds that will last a lifetime.

Source: Self-segregation: how a personalized world is dividing Americans | Technology | The Guardian

The 2017 Edelman TRUST BAROMETER reveals the largest-ever drop in trust across the institutions of government, business, media and NGOs.

Source: 2017 Edelman TRUST BAROMETER Reveals Global Implosion of Trust

The reasons for Trump’s win are obvious, if you know where to look.

Manly dignity is a big deal for working-class men, and they’re not feeling that they have it. … So is breadwinner status: Many still measure masculinity by the size of a paycheck.

Class trumps gender, and it’s driving American politics.

• Understand That Working Class Means Middle Class, Not Poor
• Understand Working-Class Resentment of the Poor
• Understand How Class Divisions Have Translated into Geography
• If You Want to Connect with White Working-Class Voters, Place Economics at the Center
• Avoid the Temptation to Write Off Blue-Collar Resentment as Racism

WWC men aren’t interested in working at McDonald’s for $15 per hour instead of $9.50. What they want is what my father-in-law had: steady, stable, full-time jobs that deliver a solid middle-class life to the 75% of Americans who don’t have a college degree.

trade deals are far more expensive than we’ve treated them, because sustained job development and training programs need to be counted as part of their costs

If we don’t take steps to bridge the class culture gap, when Trump proves unable to bring steel back to Youngstown, Ohio, the consequences could turn dangerous.

Source: What So Many People Don’t Get About the U.S. Working Class – by Joan C. Williams

The Professor Watchlist is one such relic of the past, returned to the present—a readily available archive of who should be punished, who should be surveilled, and who should be erased. There may be more to come: Lists of refugees and undocumented immigrants, ready for an official invocation. Lists of enemies of the state, both foreign and domestic. Lists of radicals, lists of community organizers, lists of scientists. Lists that reminded people of dark moments in American history; of Joseph McCarthy and Richard Nixon, and the Japanese internment camps in the US during World War II.

It is a confirmation that those who believed progress was inevitable were wrong all along.

Source: I’m on the Professor Watchlist—and it’s woken me up to the radical truth about America and social progress — Quartz