Civic Passport

There is a model of American history I’ve been toying with lately that helps to explain the moment we are in. I’m sure I’m not the first person to have come up with this, but I find it more useful than the dominant lens that is typically used.

The normal model that you come across in political science is the sun and moon parties. You have the era where there is a dominant party and then a minority party that reflects the issues and concerns of the sun party. In this view, there is a Democratic majority after the New Deal, and then after that the Republicans have a majority party with Reagan, and each usually lasts about 40ish years.

You can get a lot more in the weeds on that, but I think it helps to actually take a broader view that goes beyond thinking in terms of majority/minority parties. I think there have been three broad eras in American history, and the reason things seem so in flux right now is because we are entering a fourth. The first era is the founding era from the founding of the nation in 1776/1787 to the Civil War. This is dominated by issues that were generated in the founding of the country, with slavery being the sticking point that eventually brought about the end of that era.

The second era is the Civil War and reconstruction. This period is concerned with obviously the Civil War, but also with economic and racial issues that arose. Northern industry was dominant and generated both immense wealth, and the disparity of lower classes. It also dealt with concerns about race and the place of blacks in America (and this would definitely continue into the next era). Also, America became an international power during this period because of its economic might.

The third era is the New Deal era. This era has been concerned with the size and scope of the federal government and all of the functions that it has, as well as the Cold War. This era also brought about revolutions in social life that are ongoing. The Government has had a much larger role in economic life, and that also included research, energy, space, the military, and other things. This era also gave us various ideological struggles, but mostly centering around capitalism and socialism, liberalism and conservatism.

Each era was founded in particularly catastrophic circumstances. The founding era came to an end in a terrible Civil War that cost over 600,000 lives. It solved some problems that were left from the founding and generated new problems that dominated the Civil War era. The New Deal era arose out of the calamity of the Great Depression. Millions of people were out of work and destitute, and the government became active and created new agencies and regulations that conclusively resolved some issues that had arisen from teh Civil War, but, as before, also genrerated new problems that have been festering. Each period has lasted 70-80 years roughly.

The New deal era is itself coming to a close. Since the year 2000 there has been a war on terror that both succeeded in some respects, and failed in others, a financial crisis and recension, and a pandemic that greatly shook up the country and realigned some factions. It has also seen the rise of Donald Trump who has dominated politics in our recent past to a greater degree than any singular person since FDR himself. Maybe this will be the Trump era or the populist era. I’m nto sure what problems are being resolved, and what problems are being generated. Given how much everything has been in flux it is hard to see where things land from here. We also have rapidly advancing technology that could change how we live and work.

History doesn’t work so neatly as this, but I find it a useful way to frame American history, and maybe help to think about where we might be headed next.

I’ve largely avoided commentating on recent events. The murder of Charlie Kirk was a horrific crime. Even as I think that he employed a style of debate that was needlessly provocative (to put it mildly), and he took positions that I think are terrible, no one should be murdered while engaging in peaceful debate and conversation.

I was listening to a podcast earlier and I thought the host spoke very powerfully about our politics. The fact is, we have to learn to live together without violence. Republicans, Democrats, liberals, conservatives, progressives, moderates, libertarians, socialists, atheists, Christians, Jews, Muslims, gay, straight, trans, MAGA fans and Bernie bros. No one is going anywhere. You aren’t changing anyone’s beliefs with a magical argument so we all agree. No one is going to permanently defeat the other party or group politically as long as we have elections. If we can’t learn to live together then the American experiment is fundamentally doomed. We are going to have to be okay with the other side having power every 2+ years. We have to be able to compromise with each other, and this can be done without sacrificing our principles or values.

People keep trying to pin this on sides, but this was the work of one man. Maybe a few people at the most. This is not the fault of the radical left (whatever that is supposed to mean), just like those on the right who have committed tremendous acts of violence don’t represent everyone on the right.

This is not a call for kumbaya politics, where we can all hold hands and just get along. This is simply a reminder that our system is based on the notion that people can deal with their differences through democratic means, and that people can be responsible enough to self-govern. In the possibly apocryphal words of Benjamin Franklin, we’ve been given a republic, if we can keep it.

I’m not sure I have much to add to the disucssion on the assassination of Charlie Kirk. I was not a fan of his, but murder is wrong, and our society is based on the idea, not just of freedom of speech, but that we are all created equal and endowed with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This philosophhical liberalism is the bedrock that allows us to live peacably together and be one nation amidst the diversity of our differences. The nation’s motto is, after all, “E Pluribus Unum” (Out of Many, One). Political violence has plagued America in waves since the founding. America was founded in a violent war with Great Britain. There was a violent slave system, and a violent civil war that resulted. There was violence towards blacks and other minorities for decades, and political assassinations throughout. We’ve seen bombings and other instances as well. There’s no way to get rid of it, but every so often they cluster when there is a lot of societal turbulence.

Political violence strikes at the heart of the American project. It is no the case that we cannot make it through this, but how we make it through this period. Usually there is a period of turbulence before a new period of stability emerges. Political turbulence is inevitable as societies will go through changes over time. New problems emerge, old ideas stagnate, and people come along with new imaginations. Since the turn of the twenty-first century there has been the 9/11 attacks, the financial crisis followed by the Great Recession, a lengthy recovery culiminating in President Trump’s first term, a global pandemic, and then Trump’s second term after President Biden betrayed the public trust. There has also been increasing beligenerence from American rivals, Brexit, and two wars we engaged in that are largely seen as failures. Technology like AI and social media/smartphones have completely upended the communication world as we know it. Inflation for the first time in four decades ripped through the country. If this isn’t a period of turbulence, then I don’t know what is. It’s very hard to say where the dust will settle on the other side of this.

There is nothing inevitable about the continuence of the American experiment. History is contingent and there have been many moments where we were fortunate to have the right people come along to restore faith in the country and find our better angels. I’m not sure if that will happen this time or not, I feel fairly certain that the violence will continue and more lives will be lost. I hope that is not the case, but I fear it is so.

I close with the words from Lincoln’s first inaurgural address:

“I am loath to close. 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.”

Unfortunately, after this there were four years of civil war and more lives were lost than in any other American conflict.

David French had a really good newsletter this week. I’m pretty sure it’s gated to subscribers, but it’s about Article II of the Constitution and the ambiguity of the opening sentence: “The executive power shall be vested in a president of the United States of America.” The problem is in the vagueness of the phrase “executive power”. It’s so open ended that we end up with a chief executive officer who can in a sense do whatever they want as long as they are executing some action, at least in theory. What David French, and others, have proposed is an amendment that rephrases that sentence to drastically limit executive authority. Instead of how it currently reads it would say “A president of the United States of America shall execute laws passed by Congress.” This makes it clear that the President is executing laws passed by Congress and all executive power (however the Supreme Court decides to interpret that) does not reside in them. This still leaves open the president as commander in chief of the armed forces and all other enumerated powers laid out in Article II. However, it restrains the President from the potentiality of doing whatever they want with laws that congress passes.

For the past couple of years, I’ve been using micro.blog as my (in)consistent blogging platform. Whenever I’ve had flashes of inspiration—what Stephen King calls “the boys downstairs”—I’ve written them down here. For me, this blog has been an outlet to process ideas, current events, books, my faith, and more.

Now I’ve decided to open this space to a wider audience—putting it out there for anyone who might want to think alongside me. This is, at its core, a blog about understanding: understanding the subjects that capture my interest, and exploring how the world works and why it works the way it does.

In the past, I’ve tried to start blogs and never stuck with them. But with micro.blog, I’ve found a platform that gives me a relatively consistent outlet. It’s simple, affordable—unlike many other platforms that charge an arm and a leg—and easy to connect with other spaces online.

Like many, I find the state of the world troubling. I don’t claim to have the answers, but I do hope to better understand current events by tracing the undercurrents behind them—and maybe even generate some ideas for addressing the challenges we face. That said, this won’t be just a politics blog (though, as those who know me can probably guess, politics will be a central theme). I’ll also write about my faith and how it has evolved, as well as reviews or reflections on books I find especially thought-provoking. For instance, I’ve written about The Dead Zone by Stephen King here and The Scout Mindset by Julia Galef here. Occasionally, I’ll dive into history, technology, or even share thoughts on movies and shows I’ve watched.

There’s a line attributed to the twentieth-century political philosopher Hannah Arendt: “Writing is an integral part of the process of understanding.” I’ve found this to be true. Along with teaching, writing forces you to test whether you truly understand something. Sometimes, I even change my mind as I write and reason through a topic. With a little brainstorming help from ChatGPT, I came up with the subtitle for this blog: “Open Borders for Curious Minds.” I like it both for the irony and the reality that my interests are too wide-ranging to be confined to a single theme.

Since I already have a backlog of posts, I plan to re-post some older pieces and expand them, though you can always find originals in the site’s archives.

Thank you for reading. I hope you’ll join me in thinking through these ideas—and maybe find a bit of entertainment along the way.

You’re a Republican, having a casual conversation at the YMCA with someone you know only as Bob, who happens to be a Democrat. You’re discussing your latest work project when the topic shifts to a recent school shooting. Bob suddenly says, “Can you believe how these Republicans won’t do anything about gun violence? They don’t care one iota about our children.”

Immediately, you feel that tightness in your gut. You tense up, defensive. Your mind begins racing through all the usual counterarguments—your critiques of Democratic policies, your beliefs about the Second Amendment, your concerns about government overreach. But this isn’t the time or place, so you steer the conversation elsewhere.

That night, though, you’re still unsettled. You find yourself texting Bob, launching into a debate about guns. The two of you go back and forth, each digging in, defending your side, growing more frustrated—and getting nowhere.

This is what Julia Galef, in The Scout Mindset, calls the soldier mindset. It’s the impulse to protect your beliefs, to marshal arguments and fend off threats to your worldview. In this mindset, you’re not trying to find the truth—you’re trying to win.

The alternative is what Galef calls the scout mindset. A scout’s job is to survey the terrain and draw the most accurate map possible. The scout is curious, open, and motivated by understanding—not by defending. In the book, Galef explores how the soldier mindset manifests through various fallacies and biases, and how adopting a scout mindset can help us see the world more clearly.

Importantly, Galef doesn’t pretend that the scout mindset is easy—or natural. We’ve evolved to be soldiers. Tribal loyalty, identity, and survival instincts push us to defend what we already believe. Letting go of that identity can feel like letting go of part of ourselves. But Galef urges us to “hold our identities lightly,” to stay open to the idea that we might be wrong, and to continually update our mental maps as we gain new information.

Though I still feel the instinct to defend what’s closest to my identity, I’ve learned to hold my beliefs more loosely. Especially in politics and religion, I try to sit with uncertainty and remain open to new evidence. That doesn’t mean I don’t have convictions—I do—but I’m more comfortable now with the idea that I might be wrong, and more interested in discovering where that might be true.

I highly recommend this book if you want to learn how to better understand the world and your place in it. In a time when so many conversations turn into battles, The Scout Mindset is a call to curiosity, humility, and intellectual courage. I think that’s vital to a life well lived. Is there a belief you hold tightly that might benefit from a scout’s curiosity?

Finished reading: The Scout Mindset by Julia Galef 📚

One of the concepts that has stuck with me from reading Thomas Sowell is the idea of the Constrained Vision versus the Unconstrained Vision. The constrained vision holds that humans are fallible and imperfect, and that this is not a fault of society but inherent in individuals. It also recognizes that scarcity is a fundamental feature of the world, and because of the limits of both the world and human nature, there are no permanent solutions to society’s problems — only tradeoffs. This means society will never be perfected, but it can be improved through various institutional arrangements.

The constrained vision manifests on both the left and the right. For example, some progressives advocate for a more generous welfare state but recognize the risks of over-taxation or creating dependency — that’s a constrained view. Others push for climate action while openly grappling with the economic tradeoffs involved.

The unconstrained vision is more utopian. It sees people as perfectible and holds that society and institutions are primarily to blame for what ails us. With the right arrangement of policies, we could eventually achieve something like heaven on earth. On the left, people might argue that poverty can be eliminated through government programs, educational reform, and taxing the wealthy, or that climate change can be solved without real tradeoffs. On the right, some conservatives believe illegal immigration can be solved without confronting economic tradeoffs; Christian nationalists believe imposing biblical law would create a godly nation; and some libertarians hold an unconstrained vision that free markets can solve all of society’s problems if only government would get out of the way.

As these examples show, the unconstrained vision can be found on both the left and the right. Whether it’s woke progressives or MAGA populists, the unconstrained vision can be seductive because it allows for simple rhetoric and appealing beliefs. We’re told we don’t need to make tradeoffs between economic growth and addressing climate change, or balance incentives when managing income redistribution and taxes.

By contrast, the constrained vision is more tragic because it accepts that we can’t permanently solve these problems — or at least, we can’t solve one problem without creating others or sacrificing something else. For instance, we might imagine that redistributing the wealth of billionaires would end poverty. But doing so would create other problems — economic, political, and social — which would, in turn, generate new challenges and tradeoffs.

The two-visions model isn’t perfect. Sometimes, the two seem to blend. For example, in the civil rights movement, there was often a rhetorical unconstrained vision, but the chief accomplishments came from working within the system to achieve the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. This shows that the constrained vision can actually work to make improvements and expand rights for more people.

While the model has limits — as all models do, since it’s a simplification of reality — it provides a useful tool for analyzing political movements, rhetoric, and ideology. Through this framework, we can look under the hood to better understand those on the other side, perhaps seeing more common ground than we might have recognized, and also seeing how we might better negotiate political compromises.

Finally, as someone who sees politics through the lens of the constrained vision, it has kept me humble by reminding me that there are no permanent solutions, only tradeoffs — and almost anytime you hear someone claiming otherwise, they are probably trying to sell you a magic potion.

Update: I wanted to provide a link for this book. You can purchase it on Amazon here

NPR’s Steven Inskeep: “If I understand this correctly, the US president has launched a trade war against the world, believes he can force the EU and China to meet his terms, is determined to annex Canada and Greenland, but is powerless before the sovereign might of El Salvador. Is that it?”

The Constitution of the United States clearly lays out that due process applies to “all persons”, not just citizens. The Trump administration is clearly trying to challenge that with Abrego Garcia case as they sent him, a legal resident, to a prison in El Salvador alleging that he is a member of a Venezuelan gang without giving him due process. Aside from whether or not there is evdience to substantiate that, it doesn’t matter because he is owed his time in court. The Trump administration clearly does not care even when instructed by courts at multiple levels to return him. Just today the president of El Salvador stated that, after a meeting with Trump at the White House, that he would not send back Mr. Garcia.

This is clearly a test case to see what Mr. Trump can get away with, and if the Supreme Court does not stand up to this then we are in trouble as a country. Equal protection of the law applies to everyone within the borders of the United States, not just those who are citizens of the U.S. If that truly goes away, then who can spare us from the arbitrary whims of whatever man or woman happens to occupy the presidency? We already have a president who is essentially immune from facing prosecution. Congress and the courts need to step it up, or the consequences will be dire. Congress should pass an immigration reform law that will both secure the border, and give some protections to people who are here legally, and for those who are undocumented, send them to the back of the line so they wait their turn along with those trying to get in legally. We should also be making it easier to enter the country legally as we need more people, not less. Also, making it easier to enter the coutnry legally and more difficult to enter illegally will incentivize people outside to wait for legal entrance. The Courts must speak firmly to bind the President to adhering to the rule of law and follow due process. If the President refuses, then Congress has the duty to impeach Trump and remove him from office.

I wish I could nuance this and offer something to assuage the alarm, but in this instance, I don’t see much nuance here. Either due process and equal protection apply to all, or they apply to none.