We have argued in this space that the state of democracy in America is both worse and better than people think.

One of the more satisfying parts of this job has been engaging in partnerships with other organizations and presidential centers and foundations dedicated to serving the public weal and strengthening democratic norms and practices.

We in the United States in 2024 are in the midst of what political scientists and others call “polarization,” by which the poles of right and left grow stronger while the “center does not hold,” as the Irish poet once wrote.

Last week we discussed Rousseau’s idea that “the act that constitutes the republic isn’t part of its constitution,” done by a “lawgiver” “able to see all men’s passions without having any of them.”

Last week I gave a brief introduction to the thinking of Eric Voegelin, but more importantly to the problem of Gnosticism.

Tolkien’s collected correspondence was first published in 1981; a new edition was released in late 2023, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien: Revised and Expanded Edition, which adds more letters to the previous correspondence collection.

The Michigan legislature, in 1994, declared Russell the state’s “greatest man of letters.”

This series aims to help our readers understand the complexity of our Constitutional system, in no small part by detailing the arguments involved in its construction.

Recent times have been tough for Boy Scouts of America.  Although still one of the largest youth organizations in the US, its ranks have dwindled from about 3 million in the 1970s to fewer than 800,000 today

One question I like asking people is, if they went to college, which books had a special impact on either their thinking or their general approach to life.

Readers of these pages know our special interest in the political thinking that took place around the founding era and now it can help illuminate our politics today.

It is a fantasy of the industrial episode—that brief blip in human history that began with the Industrial Revolution but is now showing signs of congestive heart failure, complete with the attendant edema below the knees—that infinite desires can be satisfied indefinitely in a finite space.

In my former life as a professor, and in my current non-professional life, I’ve advocated for a school of thought called “localism.”

The coarsening of public discourse has brought attention about the need to back civility back into the culture.

Much of our lives become embroiled in and defined by our obsessions with things “fleeting and failing,” but we can never silence the still, small voice within us that tells us to seek for truth and meaning beyond the ephemera.

The framers of our Constitution worried most about the power of the legislature, and for that reason directed much of their attention to checks upon legislative power.

Executive privilege is the constitutional principle that permits the president and high-level executive branch officers to withhold information from Congress, the courts, and ultimately the public.

I’ve long claimed that, in a republican system of government, if presidential elections become the system’s central feature then that system is already in deep trouble.

In an earlier essay, we talked about the problem of whether we can trust our senses.

There is much debate about whether America had a “Christian Founding.” Like many disagreements, the position one takes often depends on the assumptions one, and these assumptions need defending.