The New Megatrends

Hello, I hope that you’re doing great.

The world is changing quickly.  Elon Musk is buying Twitter.  The personal and the corporate are merging together in unprecedented ways.    

It’s very hard to place our trust in any individual, particularly in a polarized time when 50% of Americans despise the same person that the other 50% venerates. In America today we are more comfortable with – and accustomed to – being failed by faceless bureaucracies than with trusting people.

What does our future hold?  I interviewed trendspotter Marian Salzman on the podcast this week for her new book, “The New Megatrends: Seeing Clearly in the Age of Disruption.”  Marian is someone who travels the world determining what’s coming. 

Marian describes a time of chaos, division and uncertainty. “A critical reason we perceive a higher degree of chaos today is that we don’t feel up to the challenge of meeting current and future crises . . . this pervasive sense of pessimism is new . . . without the drive that comes from confidence.” 

She goes on, “At a time when we all face genuine existential threats, one might think people would come together to find solutions; instead, we focus on identifying convenient targets for our blame and condemnation.  We live in an age of rage – an era of us versus them, writ large.”  

Among the major trends that Marian projects are accelerating technology, a competition between the U.S. and China, climate change, and ongoing effects of the pandemic.  One response will be a desire to return to nature and seek out a secure environment. 

“The chaos of now and next is turbocharged, posing constant challenge to our mental health and well-being . . . The new luxury is the simplest of all: breathing space.  Time to find oneself and to restore order in a world overloaded by the clutter of materiality, uncertainty, and emotional burdens has become a premium. We all crave a secure space—physical and mental—in which to absorb the trials and tribulations of modern life.”

She believes people’s attention will turn to what works for them, first and foremost. “Self is at the center. With social and cultural institutions in flux, our focus has turned inward, emphasizing personal experiences, growth, and branding. People will endeavor to create or join new institutions and systems in which individuals 'like them' are front and center—both to safeguard their interests and devise and implement what they consider the best solutions.”

Marian also notes increasing inequality as a source of conflict and instability.  “Society is egregiously unbalanced in most respects, none more so than wealth and access to critical resources. A select few have an abundance, while the rest have an excess only of anger and resentment at the inequities of their lot.”  That's a tough atmosphere to manage.  

I found Marian’s projections very incisive and perceptive.  She sees our challenges clearly.  As to our possibilities, she remains tentatively optimistic.  “I always return to the first truth of our contemporary predicament: we may have stone-age minds, but we live in a space-age technology world. And that brings not just challenges but potential solutions.”  In a time of institutional failure, change can happen more quickly than most believe possible.   

She asks, “Which future will you champion – the Great Divide or the Great Reboot?”  I know which one I’d prefer to fight for.  I hope you will too.  

To hear my conversation with Marian click here.  You can also find my book talk from the Forward Tour here. 

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The Independent Senator

Hello, I hope you’re doing great. 

This weekend there was enormous political news out of Utah.  The Democratic Party declined to run a candidate for Senate against Mike Lee.  This leaves one opponent – Evan McMullin who is running as an Independent. 

First, you might have heard about Mike Lee in the news as one of the Senators who colluded with Donald Trump to overturn the election on January 6th  by text messaging chief of staff Mark Meadows.  Mike Lee is that kind of Republican, a two-term incumbent running for his 3rd term who has been endorsed by Trump.

Evan McMullin is a true patriot.  He was a CIA operations officer in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia for 7 years before returning to the States.  He ran for President in 2016 as an Independent because he believed that Donald Trump wasn’t fit for the office.  Many moderates who didn’t like Trump turned to Evan.  He received 734,737 votes nationwide including 21.5% of the vote in his native Utah.  He then co-founded the Renew America Movement to back principled, pro-democracy candidates. 

I’ve met with Evan and he’s the genuine article.  He never imagined a career in politics – he first tried to recruit others to run before stepping up to do so himself.  But he’s deeply concerned about the future of the country and is doing all he can to make a positive difference.  Now he’s running against Mike Lee for the same reason. 

You would ordinarily think that would make Evan the 3rd candidate in the race.  But the Democratic Party made the nearly unprecedented decision this weekend to get out of the way and let Evan take on Mike Lee unopposed. 

Why did they do this?  Utah is a red state - Trump won Utah by 21 percent - so there’s just about zero chance of a Democrat winning.  The Democrat would likely have been more of a spoiler than a true contender.  Evan is a better fit for the state, and has a much better chance to unseat Mike Lee, than a traditional Democrat. 

Still, this was a controversial decision for the Democratic Party in Utah, as you can imagine.  There was a candidate, Kael Weston, vying for the Democratic nomination to run against Mike Lee, who obviously opposed the idea.  Some Democrats complained that not having a candidate for their party effectively disenfranchised them.  Others warned that this would split what was left of the Democratic Party in Utah.  The motion to not run a candidate – and essentially back Evan – won by 782 votes to 594, largely because Ben McAdams, a senior Democrat in Utah and former member of Congress, backed and endorsed Evan over running a Democrat who was sure to lose.  They put ‘country over party.’ 

Evan McMullin’s candidacy is an historic opportunity on several levels. 

First, Evan could singlehandedly change the political dynamics in Washington.  Imagine a deadlocked Senate with 49 Dems and 50 Republicans or vice versa.  Evan, as the lone Independent, could literally be the person who sets the agenda.  I said in my book talk, “How many Senators does it take to control things in Washington in a polarized country?  Only One.”  Believe it or not, I had Evan in mind when I said those words.    

Second, it could demonstrate that Americans are eager to reward a different approach to our politics.  Instead of staying stuck in our two lanes – with 90% of races foreordained in the general due to uncompetitive districts – we can build new coalitions.  If Democrats can team up with Independents in Utah to unseat a Republican, resulting in a Senator who maybe doesn’t agree with them on everything but will be much more independent and principled, then the same thing could happen in Nevada, Alaska and other states around the country.  People who don’t now have a voice could gain one instead of being locked out. 

Third, Evan could show that, yes, Independents can win major races and the duopoly doesn’t control everything.  The single biggest thing holding back third party candidates in this country is the sense that they can’t win.  If Evan wins, he would immediately be a national figure that others would look to as proof Independents can compete and defeat incumbents in high-profile races.  It would be a sea change for third-party politics in our country. 

But Evan’s race will not be easy.  Lee has more than $2.1 million in cash reserves and has been endorsed by Trump.  Evan outraised Mike Lee in the first quarter $1 million to $523k so Evan has momentum but he needs our help.  I’ve donated to Evan and I hope that you will too.  You can also volunteer and tell your friends in Utah at https://evanmcmullin.com.  Let’s go all in for Evan. 

Can there be a new approach to our politics that leads the right kind of people to Washington?  We are going to find out in Utah in about 6 months.  Let’s show the nation that there’s still hope for good people like Evan to rise up, run for the right reasons, put country over party, and win.    

The Great Experiment

Hello, I hope all is great on your end.

My book talk from the Forward Tour in NYC is now available on YouTube and I’m glad to say people have been loving it. Some of my favorite comments: “Came for the Forward talk, stayed for the stand up comedy” and “I’m YangGang and I’m refreshed and energized!” You can check it out here.

This week on the podcast I interviewed Johns Hopkins professor and writer for the Atlantic Yascha Mounk on his new book: “The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure.” If you’ve been keeping up with me you know that I’ve been very focused on the imminent failures and challenges facing American democracy. So has Yascha.

“The establishment of our new Government seemed to be the last great experiment, for promoting human happiness, by creating a reasonable compact, in civil Society,” George Washington wrote in 1790. Mounk takes this experiment as applied to increasingly diverse societies, more diverse than Washington could likely have imagined.

Does diversity make democracy more difficult? Mounk posits that it does for a couple reasons. “First, clashes between different identity groups have historically been one of the major drivers of human conflict. For many societies, diversity has turned out to be a stumbling block rather than a strength. And second, democratic institutions can do as much to exacerbate as to alleviate the challenge of diversity. In many cases, rule by the majority has served to enflame violence between ethnic or religious rivals . . . “ Mounk assumes a level of difficulty that I think Americans are now waking up to after years of taking stability for granted. Humans are tribal. Democratic failure can lead to anarchy, domination, and/or fragmentation.

Mounk observes that the first challenge is to overcome negativity about both whether diverse democracy can work and whether we are making progress. “Refusing to see significant progress in the past half century, [pessimists] naturally have little hope for the next half century. In their minds, ‘whites’ and ‘people of color’ will always face each other as implacable enemies . . . if the great experiment is to succeed, we need to develop a more optimistic vision.”

Mounk proposes a new metaphor for a public park, where different groups can come and congregate both themselves and interact with others. This is distinct from the ‘melting pot’ in which people assimilate or the ‘salad bowl’ in which groups remain separate elements. He recommends investing in patriotism, both civic and cultural. He regards mutual cultural influence as a positive thing in terms of music, food and art, and eschews cultural purism (i.e. he thinks the concerns of ‘cultural appropriation’ are commonly misplaced and unconstructive). Emphasizing what we share is worth investing in.

Mounk in particular argues that the fixation on demography as destiny is a recipe for conflict; i.e. that a Democratic voting majority based on people of color is a foreordained conclusion based on the increasing diversity of the country is neither necessarily accurate nor a path to success. Rather, the goal should be that politics don’t morph into proxies for fixed groups. He cites the different experiences and mindsets of different groups as examples – e.g., mixed race individuals identifying as white, Latinos who are conservative on immigration, etc.

I felt this critique was very important; how many breathless articles have we seen about shifting demographics and their political implications? If the media stopped treating ethnic groups as monolithic voting blocks with uniform attitudes it would be an immeasurable improvement. If Democrats started competing hard for rural whites and Republicans started appealing to voters of color we’d all be better off and democracy would be far more secure and resilient.

We should not be defined by the color of our skin, politically or otherwise.

Mounk writes, “An overwhelming focus on the importance of ethnic identity and the irreconcilable conflicts between whites and ‘people of color’ is quickly becoming part of the ruling ideology of the American elite. One of the most pressing questions of the next few decades is whether this elite will succeed in imposing its view of race on the rest of the population - or whether ordinary Americans drawn from every demographic group are able to counter with a more inspiring vision of our collective future.”

Indeed, this may be the question of our time. It also sounds like a mission statement for the Forward Party to me. Let’s do it.

Check out the Forward Tour video on YouTube and the podcast convo with Yascha Mounk here.

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The Abraham Lincoln of Today

Hello, I hope that you are doing great. I just got back from Miami where I spoke at the Bitcoin conference and had a reception for the Forward Party. Tonight in New York I'll be receiving an award from Fairvote for championing Ranked Choice Voting - it should be a phenomenal night.

I interviewed John Avlon of CNN on the podcast this week about his new book, “Lincoln and the Fight for Peace.” There were many lessons from the book, which I found to be a fascinating read. When you think of Abraham Lincoln, you probably think of the Emancipation Proclamation or the Gettysburg Address. Maybe you consider his tragic assassination. You almost certainly think of one of the great Presidents of all time. I remember visiting the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. when I was 12 years old with my parents and being strangely moved by it.

What you don’t think of is Third Party President. Yet that is in essence what he was – Lincoln ran on the brand new Republican Party ticket in 1860 and won with 39.8% of the vote in a 4-candidate race, something that would seem unthinkable today. He also ran in 1864 as a Republican on a unity ticket, with Andrew Johnson the Democrat as his Vice President.

John writes about Lincoln at the time, “As a new president from a new party, Lincoln was often disrespected and demonized. Newspapers called him ‘weak and wishy-washy,’ an ‘imbecile in matter, disgusting in manner,’ and an ‘obscene Illinois ape.’”

Lincoln responded to this criticism, and even to the Southerners he would find himself warring against, with empathy and understanding. He said, “If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend . . . on the contrary, assume to dictate to his judgment, or to command his action, or to mark him as one to be shunned and despised, he will retreat within himself, close all avenues to his head and his heart.” All too true.

John writes, “[Lincoln] did not demonize opponents, even as they called for his death . . . he disliked interpersonal conflict and a disarming number of his colleagues commented on his ‘childlike’ heart . . . even his enemies admitted he was honest. It was a core quality that could not be credibly denied . . . his honesty was leavened with humor – a disarming combination. Lincoln’s jokes were reprinted in newspapers across the country, enhancing his popularity and reputation for backwoods common sense.”

He continues, “Lincoln was a temperamentally moderate man, a reconciler in a time of radicals and reactionaries. As a young man, he warned that ‘as a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.’ As president, Lincoln asked Americans to rise ‘far above personal and partisan politics.’ To his fellow Republicans he said, ‘even though much provoked, let us do nothing through passion and ill temper.’”

Of course, Lincoln combined this sense of empathy with a great moral resolve around the questions of his time, which were ending slavery and keeping the country together and whole. Today, we may not have something as obvious as slavery rending the country apart, yet many of us fear it is happening just the same, being driven by perverse political incentives, media tribes and the hollowing out of the American middle class.

It is no accident that John decided to write this book during a time when we are more polarized than ever. “Part of the reason I went to history isn’t only because I love history . . . but we can talk about politics through the prism of our history and it gives us perspective on our problems and our politics.” It’s his hope that people will examine our past, embrace Lincoln’s legacy and rally behind a similar figure today. It may not be one person. Perhaps it will be a collection of people or a movement. But there will certainly be individual leaders. Our task is to identify, elevate and support them.

People talk all the time about how a 3rd party challenge hasn’t been successful in quite some time. But in our most crucial time, it was. It brought us Abraham Lincoln, who is rightly venerated as one of our most important leaders who helped mend a country. Politics as usual won’t work. But I believe a new politics is around the corner. Let’s help make it so.

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Get Off the X

Hello, I hope all is great. 

This past Friday I was on Bill Maher talking about boys and men, polarization, third parties, local news and other topics.  Afterwards I received a flurry of messages expressing support. 

Polarization is overtaking our society and people are feeling it on both sides.  One person who wants to bring us back together is Will Hurd, who was on the podcast this week. 

Will has a fascinating story – a black computer science major from Texas turned CIA operative.  He became a rising star at the CIA over the next 9 years working as an operations officer in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.  When he was briefing members of Congress in Afghanistan he was struck by how little they knew of the situation on the ground, and decided to run for Congress himself.  On his 2nd try, he won a seat in 2014 at the age of 37 in Texas’s 23rd district which includes the area from San Antonio to El Paso. 

Will became known for working across party lines, including co-sponsoring a compromise immigration reform package and roadtripping across the country with Beto O’Rourke.  He was one of only 8 House Republicans who voted in favor of the Equality Act in 2019 and was at one point the only Black Republican in the House.  Will served 3 terms before deciding to leave Congress in 2020 to, among other things, join the Board of OpenAI to ensure that artificial intelligence is used responsibly. 

As you can imagine, Will is deeply concerned about what’s going on in the country and wants to help.  At the age of 44, he’s been mentioned as a potential next-generation presidential candidate in the Republican primary.  I confess that I picked his brain about his time in the CIA on the podcast because I thought it would provide fascinating insight. 

His new book, “American Reboot: An Idealist’s Guide to Getting Big Things Done” opens with a story from his CIA days.  He was performing a Surveillance Detection Route on the way to meet an asset in India.  While inching along in his Toyota Tercel he mistakenly ran over a woman’s toe.  His car became surrounded by an angry mob who began pushing on the vehicle. 

As he relates, “The CIA had taught me about situations like this.  The first thing you are supposed to do is get off the X.  The X is where something is going down - an ambush, a riot, or general chaos erupting or about to erupt.  Staying on the X is the last place you want to be.” 

Will unexpectedly got out of the car.  He found someone who he could communicate with and put the woman in a rickshaw directed to the local hospital with some money. 

The mob calmed.  People started clapping and helped Will back into his car.  He writes, “I’ve had years to reflect on why an incensed mob went from rage to happiness within minutes.  I have concluded that the mob appreciated a show of warm-heartedness from someone they did not expect to show kindness . . . their rage was checked when they saw an act of compassion – me getting out of the car, trying to do something about the situation I had put the woman in.” 

To Will, the U.S. is on the X right now due to polarization, and we have to get off of it.  He’s right about that.  And he wants to help.  

I’ve met a number of figures like Will who want to restore a sense of principle to our politics.  I think structural reforms are necessary.  But those reforms won’t happen without people like Will working to lead us in a better direction.  If his past is any indication, I wouldn’t bet against Will - he's got a track record of turning around bad situations.  

I often see characterizations of Democrats and Republicans that paint people with a broad brush.  I personally find it impossible to generalize across a group of tens of millions of people, most of whom don’t resemble the cantankerous back and forth on social media every day.  Will’s experience representing his constituents in Texas is that if you show up and talk to people and work hard on their behalf, they’ll consider you regardless of party affiliation.  “The letter next to my name should matter less than my message . . . if you want to get back to normal, you need to get more normal people to vote in primaries.  Most people aren’t nuts.  They want to solve problems.”  That sounds awfully Forward. 

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How Civil Wars Start

Hello, I hope that you and yours are great. 

If you know me, you know that I’ve been concerned about potential conflict breaking out in the United States for several years.  You know I also like data. 

A study came out last week that documented a relationship between extremism and automation – that is, if people lose their jobs to automation they become more subject to extreme political ideologies, particularly on the right.  Millions of manufacturing jobs were lost to automation in the last 20 years, most of them in the Midwest and the South. 

Barbara Walter is a political scientist who has been studying what causes civil wars for years – “I didn’t think I’d be applying my learnings to the United States.”  Barbara wrote the new NYTimes bestseller “How Civil Wars Start: and How to Stop Them.”  It is chock full of data and international references. 

For example, there is an international scale for rating polities that ranges from -10 to +10, with +10 being a stable democracy (e.g., Canada) and -10 being an authoritarian state (e.g., North Korea).  It turns out that neither democracies nor autocracies are particularly subject to Civil Wars.  What are? 

Anocracies – that is, states that lie somewhere in-between democracy and authoritarianism. 

The United States has been a 10 on this polity scale for most of the last century.  But recently, in the wake of Trump’s questioning of the last election and declining faith in our democratic institutions, we slumped down to a 5.  The danger zone on this scale where a civil war – defined as a conflict that kills 1,000 people a year – is more common lies between a 5 and a -5. 

Another scale is factionalism – when a society breaks into groups that are fixed politically.  Factions are particularly dangerous when they overlap with an ethnic group or a region.  Barbara describes Trump as a classic “ethnic entrepreneur,” which is apparently a common phenomenon in political science. Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia is an example of an ethnic entrepreneur. 

An ethnic faction that also overlaps with the same religion, class and/or geographic location can become a superfaction, which is 12 times more likely to lead to war. 

A third ingredient that leads to conflict is if an ethnic group feels that it is losing its status relative to other groups.  A group that has held the majority of political or economic power that feels its dominance slipping away is much more likely to instigate a conflict. 

Unfortunately, there are clearly ingredients of both of these elements here in the United States.  Indeed, Barbara states that the United States is at a 3 on the factionalism scale, with 5 being the most divided.  And as America becomes a majority- minority society the changes are making some feel more aggrieved and insecure. 

Barbara believes that social media is negatively associated with democracy – both here and abroad.  “Social media is every ethnic entrepreneur’s dream  . . . It’s this business model of engagement that makes [it] so terrifying to those of us who study civil wars . . . ultimately, it’s the algorithms of social media that serve as accelerants for violence.  By promoting a sense of perpetual crisis, these algorithms give rise to a growing sense of despair.”  Barbara, in our interview, cited higher social media adoption rates with a lower propensity toward democratization and vice versa. 

In the U.S., Barbara is increasingly concerned.  There are now over 400 militia groups in the U.S.  “Where is the United States today?  We are a factionalized anocracy that is quickly approaching the open insurgency stage, which means we are closer to civil war than any of us would like to believe.”  She cites people in other countries who register disbelief even as conflict erupts. 

What can be done?  Barbara suggests improving the country’s governance to be more responsive, reforming our democracy and outbidding extremists by providing tangible benefits, like healthcare.  She also, like Jonathan Greenblatt and many others, wants to rein in social media.    

I found Barbara and her thinking very compelling – she had spent years studying conflicts in other countries only to apply those lessons here in the United States.  We have long felt ourselves to be exceptional.  But it’s only by investing in things that many of us have taken for granted – like our democracy itself - can we remain immune from the conflicts that have overtaken so many other societies.  

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It Could Happen Here

Hello, I hope that you are doing great. 

Since January 6th of last year, many Americans have been reckoning with the fact that things we didn’t imagine possible in our country are now on the table. 

Hate is on the rise. Polarization is sky high. Contempt for people different from you is the norm, leading to the dehumanization of others. 

An organization with a staff of hundreds monitors hate groups in forums and social media posts every day, trying to stay ahead of threats before they materialize.  That organization is the Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913. 

Jonathan Greenblatt became the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League in 2015, right about when Trump began to dominate the political scene.  As Trump arrived, hate incidents surged. “The data doesn’t lie, antisemitic incidents from 2015 – 2020 leapt 114% . . . our staff investigated over 9,600 incidents in 2020 . . . just the number of raw incidents is way up.”

Jonathan and I first met about 10 years ago when he was the Director of Social Innovation and Civic Participation in the Obama White House and I was the CEO of Venture for America.  His new book, “It Could Happen Here: Why America is Tipping from Hate to the Unthinkable – And How We Can Stop It” details some of his experiences the past 6 years as the head of the ADL and his concerns for the future.  I interviewed Jonathan this week on the podcast.

One thing I appreciate about both Jonathan’s approach and his book is that he humanizes the stories.  He talks about ‘counsel culture’ – engaging with people who have said or done something troubling – rather than cancel culture, which he sees as counterproductive.  One of the most compelling stories from his book was about a former white supremacist named Damien Patton.  Damien was a boy with a difficult home life who fell in with a white supremacist group as a teen.  Damien became a leader of the group, even participating in acts of violence and organizing. 

Unbeknownst to his peers, Damien was also Jewish. That’s right, Damien was a Jewish white supremacist, whose background would have made him an immediate target for those around him.  

Damien’s story demonstrated how a sense of belonging can entrap people in a hateful ideology in ways you would never expect.   

Damien later left the group, joined the U.S. Navy and became a successful entrepreneur, leaving his past what he believed to be far behind.  But when a story came out that he was previously an active white supremacist, outrage followed and he stepped down from his company. 

Is there a path to redemption for people like Damien?  Jonathan believes that there is.  I do too, or else what hope is there? 

Jonathan and I also discussed the “Stop Hate for Profit” campaign that he organized to get Facebook to more diligently screen hate groups and speech on its social media platforms.  Led by Jonathan, hundreds of major companies and celebrities boycotted Facebook for months in 2020.  Jonathan described how Mark Zuckerberg was proud that Facebook’s AI catches 88% of hate speech; Jonathan’s response – “What about the other 12%?”  It’s clear that social media is facilitating the rise of hate groups and misinformation in America today.  Jonathan is passionate when discussing the need to rein in Facebook in particular to give us a better chance to come together. 

Much of Jonathan’s book is about what we can do as individuals to combat hate and misinformation.  Speak up.  Share Facts.  Talk to Our Kids.  But it’s also about what organizations, businesses and governments can do to shore up our society. 

Combating hate 24/7 is a tall task; I joked with Jonathan that he might have the toughest job in America.  It also might be one of the most important jobs in the country.  Could the unthinkable happen here?  The truth is that it could, unless an army of well-intended people works their hearts out to diminish the conditions that breed hate in America and show people a better way. 

Our Braver Angels

One of the joys of building the Forward Party these past months has been meeting and making common cause with other Americans who have realized just how divided our country is and are working to help change it.

How do you actually reduce polarization in real life?

“Listen to each other” or “Reach across the aisle” or “talk to different types of people” are some of the common prescriptions we hear, but the reality is it’s very difficult for any of us to take these actions in a lasting way, particularly in the face of market incentives and a fragmented media landscape. Organizations and resources are required to consciously bridge gaps, bring disparate groups together, and equip people with the tools to be able to forge genuine empathy.

One of those organizations is Braver Angels.

Braver Angels started with a workshop of 10 Trump supporters and 11 Clinton supporters in South Lebanon, Ohio in December, 2016. This was immediately after Trump’s election and emotions were running high. The workshop was structured by co-founder Bill Doherty, who had decades of experience as a family therapist.

That’s right, America needed family therapy.

This first workshop was enormously successful and gave rise to surprising relationships. Greg Smith, a former sheriff and evangelical Christian and Kouhyar Mostashfi, a Muslim Democratic official promised to visit with each other and work together. Word got out and more communities wanted the same kind of experience. A bus tour followed and Better Angels – since renamed Braver Angels – was formed.

This week on the podcast I sat down with John Wood Jr., the national ambassador for Braver Angels. John embodies many of the goals of the org and is an ideal bridge builder as a bi-racial former Obama volunteer who was also Vice Chair of the Republican Party in his hometown of Los Angeles.

John has been bringing people together for years. Said John about the recasting of Better Angels to Braver Angels, “In order to really develop a deep relationship of trust with you, especially if we are tribal opposites, it’s going to be important for me to demonstrate that I can put myself in your shoes, see things as you see them, and that I have some understanding of who you are and care . . . but it had long been evident to me that to really pursue this work into the heat of America’s tribal and political conflicts which is where it needs to go, it takes more than being empathetic; you really do need courage and bravery.”

Sitting down with John was uplifting. He noted how Braver Angels was originally named after Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural speech in 1861, which you might find familiar:

“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

Will the better angels of our nature yet prevail? Lincoln’s words were spoken mere weeks before the Civil War broke out. That doesn’t make them any less important today. Perhaps the opposite.

We have our work cut out for us, and patriots like John are working as hard as they can to guide our country in a better direction. I hope the Forward Party can work with and fortify organizations like Braver Angels – it’s a time when both courage and real empathy are needed more than ever.

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Big Tech, Russia and Democracy

As Western companies from every walk of life exit Russia as part of the sanctions against the country for its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, the biggest tech companies in the US are grappling with whether to do the same.

So far, Apple is the only major tech company to significantly exit its Russia operations, halting all sales in the region and removing Russian media outlets from its app store. On the other hand, Meta said that it intends to keep Instagram and WhatsApp active, as “people in Russia are using FB and IG to protest and organize against the war.” Amazon said that it would donate $5 million to organizations but announced no plan to shift operations. Google announced a bar of Russian news apps from its app store but is not modifying access to YouTube, which is used by 80 – 85% of Russians.

What would be the impact of big tech pulling out of Russia? Not that long ago, there was a widespread sense of optimism that social media was going to be a force for increased adoption of democratic institutions. The idea was free expression on social media and authoritarian governments would be incompatible.

Of course, we have seen that’s not the case. In the wake of the Arab Spring of 2010, any optimism was quashed as outcomes included both the continuation of repressive regimes and even societal disarray in countries like Syria and Libya. And authoritarian countries like China have implemented their own carefully monitored tech platforms while enjoying commerce with most of the world.

Here in the US, social media is contributing to the polarization we are seeing as well as widespread misinformation. You could make the case that the advent of social media has been disastrous for our own democracy here at home.

This week on the podcast I interviewed one of the foremost experts on technology’s impact on both society and democracy, Professor Ramesh Srinivasan of UCLA. Said Ramesh on the Arab Spring: “I called bullshit on that from the start. . .. There was a narrative that our tools liberate you. . . . we knew at the time that various types of personalization algorithms [were] sending us into echo chambers.”

Ramesh argues that the mining of our data and interactions is splintering people into different versions of reality and rewarding inflammatory content. “When they started doing this personalization, we became Googled, not based on some neutral notion of relevance but based on what would grab our attention. It’s all based on correlation . . . we have all this data on your engagement with these pages, .. . .it doesn’t really know what content is inflammatory or sensational because we haven’t done good AI work on this just yet . . . but it can figure out what will maximize [your] engagement and attention, what maximizes that dopamine release is outrageous content.” This is true both here in the US and everywhere.

Instead of imagining that big tech is a force for democracy, it’s more appropriate to regard them as having their own distinct interests. The tech journalist Farhad Manjoo observed that the biggest tech companies are themselves more powerful than many or most governments. Facebook’s user base is now 2.91 billion, over a third of the world’s population and about 9 times the population of the US.

Watching these tech companies wrestle with their response to Russia’s aggression highlights just how independent they are as well as their vast reach. If Meta/Facebook were an American company committed to the preservation of democracy, then it seems like an exit from Russia would be a natural step. But if Meta is more a quasi-state with its own set of interests, it simply wants to be in front of as many people as possible. Just as we’re seeing the truth of Putin and Ukraine, we’re also seeing the truth of our tech companies that have become more global and dominant than any other firms in human history.

Institutions in Retreat

The world is still grappling with Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine last week.  It shook many people to the core, well beyond those directly affected.

What kind of world is it where a hostile country can simply attack one’s neighbor?  The United Nations – and American enforcement of the world order – exists to keep us from such a world.

We are living in an era of institutional retrenchment and retreat.  Countries are just as likely to be preoccupied with internal issues and political division as to be projecting their values abroad.  This describes America but it also describes a number of other western democracies that have struggled with everything from shifting demographics to migrant crises to climate change.

Of course, our own problems are real. Whether it’s the media (16-21%) or Congress (12%) or tech companies (29%) or our public schools (32%), institutional trust is down to record lows.  65% of Republicans – about 35% of the overall population - don’t believe that Biden’s 2020 electoral victory was legitimate.  Our population is more polarized than ever and political stress is at Civil War levels.  Our democracy is hanging on by a thread.  The most trusted institutions in America right now – and the only ones above 51% - are small businesses (70%) and the military (69%).

This week on the podcast I interviewed Yuval Levin, a political thinker and the director of Social, Cultural and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a thinktank in D.C. that is generally thought of as conservative.  Yuval defines his brand of conservatism as strengthening and modernizing institutions.  For example, Yuval is for innovations like ranked choice voting, enlarging Congress and even experimenting with multi-member districts in order to make democracy more functional.  He dislikes Trump because he sees Trump as corrosive to institutions.

I appreciate Yuval’s approach – it’s true that our institutions badly need modernization, sometimes reinvention.

He recently wrote an article noting that Americans are not dating, getting married, moving or taking risks as much as in the past. He describes it as “a disordered passivity – a failure to launch, which leaves too many Americans on the sidelines of life, unwilling or unable to jump in . . .  excessive risk aversion now often deforms parenting, education, work, leadership, and fellowship in our society. It is intertwined with a more general tendency toward inhibition and constriction—with Americans walking on eggshells around each other in many of our major institutions, and with codes of speech and conduct becoming increasingly prevalent . . . [telling] us how not to behave without showing us how to thrive.”

Yuval believes that big tech is part of this phenomenon.  “We have been using our technologies to accentuate all of these tendencies. Social media have turned large swaths of our personal lives into platforms for pseudo-celebrity performance, where we display ourselves and observe others without really connecting. And they have elevated expression over action in ways that have mangled our civic and political cultures.”

To the extent that Yuval is focused on one particular institution, it’s one that is central to all of us – the family. “Both blue-collar and white-collar work have become less friendly to family formation in some respects in recent decades . . . Many younger Americans now think it was much easier than it really was for their parents to live on one income or have that additional child . . . The waning desire for family formation is both a cause and an effect of the waning of support for families in our economy and politics.”

I greatly enjoyed speaking to Yuval – he’s a very deep thinker in terms of both what our problems are and how they can be addressed.  In an era of institutional decay it seems to me that we have two real choices: rebuild and improve them or start new ones.