Civic education has failed us. This, at least, is one of the explanations for the surprising election of Donald Trump. Stories since then have recorded the fall of one political norm after another. Clearly there are consequences to our patterns of disengagement. The forces pointing to the decline of civic
There’s no magic trick for picking three stories to put at the top of the concerned citizen’s reading list. I struggle to survive the daily deluge of news just like everyone else. I often fiddle with the idea that this week was the week when it became impossible.
The original project to unite the people of the United States as one people began in May 1787. There’s a project taking place in New Orleans today that reminds us the project continues. The city started removing Confederate statues [http://www.npr.org/2017/05/20/529232823/with-lee-statues-removal-another-battle-of-new-orleans-comes-to-a-close] in
Attending a weekend workshop to focus on starting a business, I dug deeper into something Congressman John Lewis calls “good trouble.” The question presented asked for a story about grit. Not all grit aims to serve our political community but there’s a category that does. We should all work
Conversations with nonvoters and the otherwise disengaged usually dredge up the question, “what difference does it make to me?” A very active colleague’s anything but active spouse actually pointed to his wallet in one of these exchanges. He was asked why he wasn’t more involved. His wallet was