The Plural · America at 250

This isn’t the collapse. It’s the pamphlet war.Last time, people built their way out.

America turned 250 with a printing press in every pocket. The last time a new medium flooded the world, Europe got a century of pamphlet wars and religious war, and then the scientific revolution. The press printed both. People decided which one got the last word, by the conditions they built. The next American renaissance will be plural, or it won’t come.

Start with what’s wrong

A crowd of 210 Americans, sorted by one question: a red block, a blue block and a chasm between. Where are you?

IWhy we need it

Pick the thing that’s wrong with America.

Everyone has a diagnosis. Choose yours. We won’t argue with it. Then look at what sits under it.

From the notebook · April 2026

“I think the thing that is wrong has been given many names but those names pin it to a narrow explanation.”

Josh Levine

Notes marked “From the notebook” come from Josh Levine, who made this page.

Polarization Heard everywhere

Right. Each party now thinks the other isn’t only wrong but bad.

72% of Republicans called Democrats more immoral than other Americans in 2022. 63% of Democrats said the same of Republicans. In 2016 the figures were 47% and 35%.1

Parties used to be coalitions that argued inside themselves: rural Democrats, liberal Republicans, voters pulled two ways. Now each party is a sorted block, and for most seats the only election that matters is the primary inside it. Blocks don’t negotiate. They win or they lose.

Social media and the feeds Heard everywhere

You’re not imagining it. Your feed is a quarter of the country, talking.

26% of Americans say they share posts about politics on social media. Three in four don’t.2

Researchers still argue about how much the feeds cause. Polarization rose fastest among older Americans, who use social media least. The feed is one sorting machine among several. What it adds is speed: it finds the people who already agree with you and turns up the volume.

Inequality and corporate power Heard most on the left

Fair. Scale ate the middle of the economy, and the young feel it first.

45% of Americans aged 18 to 29 say they struggle or only “get by” with limited security. Only 28% expect to do better than their parents.3

Money and power moved to the center, and the contact went with them. Main street was a place where owners knew their customers and their critics by name. Platforms sort us into market segments and serve each one alone. A sorted market is also a weaker one: it’s hard to organize workers, customers or neighbors who never meet.

Institutions that stopped listening Heard at both ends

Correct. Too many universities, newsrooms and agencies hired from one block, and trust fell fastest where they did.

28% of Americans trust the mass media, the lowest in more than 50 years of Gallup data. Republicans: 8%. Democrats: 51%.4

Institutions once held hard questions open as their job. When an institution sorts its staff into one block, it stops holding questions and starts announcing answers. Half the country notices and stops listening, to the bad answers and the good ones alike.

Loneliness Heard everywhere

Yes. Americans have fewer friends and see them less.

12% of American adults said they had no close friends in 2021. In 1990 the figure was 3%.5

Clubs, congregations, unions and leagues put us in rooms with people we didn’t choose. We replaced them with circles we curate. Curated company is comfortable. It’s also thin, and it never argues back.

Climate and the planet Heard most on the left

The worry is real, and it’s growing.

48% of Americans expect global warming to pose a serious threat in their lifetime, a record in Gallup’s tracking since 1997. 91% of Democrats and 31% of Republicans say its effects have begun.6

A problem this large needs everyone who builds things: farmers, utilities, engineers, unions, investors. When climate becomes a team jersey, half the builders leave the room. Meanwhile Texas plans 40% of the country’s new solar for 2026 and more than half of its new batteries, which tells you the work and the label have come apart.7

The border and who belongs Heard most on the right

Fair. A country has to decide who comes in, and Washington has failed to decide for decades.

70% of Americans called the border an emergency or a major problem in November 2024. 58% also supported accepting refugees and orderly ways to immigrate.8

Most Americans want both order at the border and a humane system. The blocks sell each other the cartoon: open borders on one side, no immigrants at all on the other. A deal lives in the gap between the cartoons, and the gap is wider than either side admits.

A government that can’t build Heard from builders

Yes, and it’s not close. America forgot how to build what it needs.

3.7–4.7M homes is the shortage in the primary estimates (Freddie Mac 2024, Zillow 2026). Estimates range from 1 million to 10 million.9

Every project now needs the consent of every block, and any block can veto. We built a machine for stopping things, then wondered why nothing starts. Veto is a power of fragments. Building is a power of contact.

The decline of family, faith and place Heard most on the right

Yes. The institutions that held people together without asking them to agree are thinning out.

47% of Americans belonged to a church, synagogue or mosque in 2020, the first time below half in more than 80 years of Gallup measurement.10

Family, faith and place made you live beside people you would never have picked, for decades. Take them away and people don’t become free agents. They join the nearest block, and the block is happy to have them.

AI and my job Heard everywhere

The fear is reasonable, and nobody can promise you it’s wrong.

71% of American adults expect AI to mean fewer jobs in the next 20 years. Only 5% expect more.11

Anyone who says they know what AI will do to your job is selling something. Here’s what history does say. The press made Venice rich and the scribes poor, and the fight that mattered was over who owned the new presses and which towns got one. That fight is open again. A tool that once needed a big company now fits in a small shop, if the rules let it.

Threats to democracy Heard at both ends

It is. The temperature is rising, and people on both sides are getting hurt.

14,938 threat cases against members of Congress, their families and staff in 2025. A record, up 58% in one year. Members of both parties were targets.12

When each side sees the other as an enemy and not an opponent, every election feels like the last one. People break rules to win a last election. Democracy runs on the promise of a next time.

American life, in six domains

Notice the pattern

Nobody broke America. We sorted it.

Every diagnosis on that list names a real symptom. Under many of them sits the same move, made in every part of American life at once.

We took apart the fabric: the congregation, the union hall, the town paper, the party that argued inside itself.
What the old fabric left out
Some of the old fabric deserved to tear. Lodges, congregations and union halls kept out Black Americans, Jews and women, and the parties sorted partly over civil rights. We don’t want the old rooms back. We want new ones that hold everyone.
We sorted into blocks, each one alike inside: one politics, one feed, one zip code, one kind of friend.
We bolted the blocks together with thin connectors: a poll, a platform, a cable debate. They carry signals. They can’t carry trust.

Call it the Flattening. Nobody planned it, which is why nobody can repeal it. And a block that never meets the other block has to imagine it. What it imagines is a cartoon.

The other side isn’t who you think.

Test the cartoon on yourself. Guess first. Then see what the other side guessed, and what’s true. Your guess also starts your print: each part of the page that you try adds one color, and the print never leaves this browser.

From “The Perception Gap,” More in Common and YouGov: 2,100 Americans, surveyed in November 2018.

The cartoon in your head

The turn · Instrument 1

What share of Republicans agree with this: “Racism still exists in America”?

Democrats guessed 51. The real number in 2018 was 79. The 28 dots with a center are the Republicans that guess left out.

What share of Democrats agree with this: “I am proud to be American though I acknowledge my country’s flaws”?

Republicans guessed 54. The real number in 2018 was 82. The 28 dots with a center are the Democrats that guess left out.

Each side imagines almost twice as many people with extreme views on the other side as there are.

In the 2018 survey, Democrats and Republicans guessed that 55% of the other side held views they’d call extreme. The real share was about 30%. The cure for a cartoon isn’t a better argument. It’s a person.2

A 2024 More in Common survey asked the pride question of both parties. Each side guessed that about half of the other agreed. More than eight in ten did.8

the-plural-renaissance.pages.dev · More in Common and YouGov, “The Perception Gap,” 2019

The ledger of 2026

The bad news is true. It’s also half the page.

The cost17%

of Americans trust the federal government to do what’s right most of the time. In 1958: 73%.13

and yet

Also true112

federal policy positions win majorities of Republicans and of Democrats after they read the arguments for and against. On 88, more than two thirds of each party agree.14

The cost1 of 25

countries surveyed where more people call their fellow citizens morally bad than good. It’s the United States.15

and yet

Also true−34%

support for partisan violence after people learned how strongly the other side rejects it. The effect lasted a month.16

The cost35 min

a day spent socializing in 2025, down from 41 in 2015. Time on games and leisure screens rose from 25 to 37.17

and yet

Also true30→60%

of Americans who said democracy works well, before and after one weekend of deliberation with people unlike them.18

The cost52% / 9%

of Americans are more concerned than excited about AI, against those more excited than concerned.19

and yet

Also true−46%

reposts of a post on X after a Community Note, written and rated by people who usually disagree, is attached to it.20

IIWhy now

We just got a printing press.

Print took about two centuries to stop setting Europe on fire. Slide through both floods at once. One of them has an ending. The other one is ours to write.

From the notebook · November 2025

“If politics is the art of the possible what are the new possibilities made possible by those same structural changes that broke us”

Josh Levine

Stage 1 of 8

The new medium
The age of print, 1450s Movable type, in Mainz. Gutenberg prints with movable metal type. A book that took a scribe a year now takes a press days.
The age of the feed, 2007 A press in every pocket. The smartphone makes every person a publisher. In late 2022, the press learns to write by itself.
The flood
The age of print, 1500 30,000 editions. In fifty years, presses in 282 towns turn out about 30,000 editions. Cities with early presses go on to grow faster than cities without them.21
The age of the feed, 2025 800 million a week. Three years after launch, ChatGPT reports 800 million weekly users. Print took fifty years to reach 282 towns.22
The pamphlet war
The age of print, 1520–25 Four million copies. German printers turn out about four million copies of works in five years, and Luther is by far the best-selling author. Woodcuts turn the other side into monsters.23
The age of the feed, 2016–26 The cartoon war. Feeds reward outrage, and outrage needs a villain. Each side casts the other.
The panic
The age of print, 1486–1669 The witch-hunters’ manual. The Malleus Maleficarum runs to dozens of editions. New editions come before new waves of trials, and trials spread from town to town.24
The age of the feed, 2026 Synthetic persuasion. By mid-October, campaigns had spent more than $137 million on midterm ads made partly with AI. About one in four carried a disclaimer.25
The violence
The age of print, 1524–1648 A century of religious war. The Peasants’ War, the French Wars of Religion, the Thirty Years’ War. Millions die over questions that print made louder.
The age of the feed, 2025–26 The temperature rises. Record threats against Congress. A Democratic state legislator and her husband murdered at home. A conservative activist shot dead on a campus. Our version so far is smaller. Keeping it smaller is the work.26
The refusals
The age of print, 1554–1648 Rules for living with error. Castellio’s plea against killing heretics, the Edict of Nantes in 1598, the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. Slowly, Europe learns to share a continent with people it thinks are wrong.
Not yet written, 20__ Which rules will we keep? The rules that bind a winner are the ones we keep when our own side holds power. We haven’t decided yet.
The network
The age of print, 1660–1780 The Republic of Letters. The Royal Society forms in 1660, and the first scientific journals appear in 1665. Scholars across borders and faiths write, copy and correct each other. Voltaire alone leaves about 19,000 letters.27
Not yet written, 20__ A network no one owns. Not built yet. Part IV of this page is a first draft of the address book.

The same presses printed both futures.

The same presses printed the Greek classics and a manual for hunting witches. What turned the flood into an age of science was a set of conditions, built slowly and against resistance: many rival centers in contact, people who kept the argument alive in public, translators who carried ideas across languages and faiths, workshops where strangers made things together, rules for fighting that didn’t require burning the other side, and a network of letters that no one owned.

Every one of those can be built again, here, with the tools in your pocket.

IIIHow

Six conditions for a renaissance.

Sorted people can’t fix anything together. So one kind of building helps with nearly everything: put different people back in the same room, on purpose, and don’t ask them to match. The last time a civilization did that at scale, historians called it a renaissance. It runs on six conditions. None of them is a policy, and each one already has people building it.

Condition 1 · Ochre

Many centers, in contact.

Connect the distinct without erasing the distinction.

Then

Florence, Venice, Milan and Siena were rivals, and no capital ruled them. Each city stayed itself, and each one stayed in contact with the rest.

Now

America has 50 states, about 3,000 county governments and almost 19,500 city and town governments.28 That’s more than 22,000 laboratories, and most of them run one experiment: the national fight, on the national feed. Steal from the town next door instead.

Find the renaissance corner

Instrument 2

Sameness and fragmentation both fail. Keep your color, and stay in contact.

Distinctness is how different the people are. Contact is how much they deal with each other. Drag the round handle, tap a spot, or use the sliders.

Fragmented.The renaissance corner.Alone, and alike.Sameness.

Distinctness Contact

What the group can learn

The four corners

Fragmented.

Each group keeps its color, and nobody checks anybody. Each block is sure it’s right, and none of them can find out.

The renaissance corner.

Distinct within, contact between. Every group keeps its color, and the threads between them carry what each one can’t see alone.

Alone, and alike.

Nobody differs and nobody talks. There’s nothing to learn and nobody to learn it from.

Sameness.

Everyone is in contact, and everyone has drifted alike. The conversation is constant and it says nothing new.

Up: more distinct. Right: more contact.

the-plural-renaissance.pages.dev · An illustration, not a measurement.

Who builds it now

Condition 2 · Malachite

Keep the argument alive.

Dynamic tension is information. Close it too soon and the signal goes quiet.

Then

In 1401 Florence held a contest for its Baptistery doors, and Lorenzo Ghiberti beat Filippo Brunelleschi. The city kept both rivals: Ghiberti made the doors, and Brunelleschi, the loser, built the dome next door.

Now

Madison defended the Constitution with the same idea: “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.”29 A system with opposing pulls can feel when it has gone too far, and a system where one side wins for good can’t. The day your side wins for good is the day the country loses its brakes.

Two pulls and a shock

Instrument 3

Win for good, and nothing can correct the country.

Some fights must end. The line call, in condition five, tells you which.

Choose the two goods

Correction works. Each shock gets pulled back.

Both pulls It wobbles and comes back.

One pull cut It hits the wall and stays.

the-plural-renaissance.pages.dev · An illustration, not a measurement.

Who builds it now

Condition 3 · Terre verte

Translators.

A translator carries an idea across the line without dropping half of it.

Every block needs a few. Most blocks exile them first.

Then

In twelfth-century Toledo, translation took two people at one desk. One read the Arabic aloud in Castilian, and a Christian cleric wrote it down in Latin.

The rest of the history

The reader was often a Jew or an Arabic-speaking Christian. Through that desk, Greek and Arabic science reached Europe.30

The translator’s test, condition 3

You took it in Part I. Send the question to someone who votes differently, and compare before you look.

Who builds it now

Condition 4 · Verdigris

Workshops.

Make things with the people you argue with.

Then

In 1727 Benjamin Franklin, a young printer, started a Philadelphia club of tradesmen, the Junto, to argue one question at a time. Then they built things together: a subscription library in 1731, a volunteer fire company in 1736.31

Now

A century later Tocqueville called it a national habit: “Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all dispositions, constantly form associations.”32 Making something together is how people who vote differently find out they need each other.

The fabric audit

Instrument 4

In the last twelve months, where did you spend real time with someone who votes differently than you? Tap each place that’s true for you.

A house of worship
A union hall or trade group
A sports league or a gym
A volunteer fire company or civic club
A jury
The military
A school board or PTA meeting
A choir, band or theater
A job site or shop floor
A bar or diner where they know your name
A library
A town or city meeting
A food pantry or mutual aid group
A hunting, fishing or garden club
A block association or HOA
A family dinner that got heated

the-plural-renaissance.pages.dev · Nothing leaves this page.

Proof that it works

America’s Potluck, 2026

On 5 July 2026, the day after the 250th, America250 Utah led a national shared meal to connect across differences. Organizers report all 50 states and more than 70 national partners. A Republican governor backed it. An interfaith leader had the idea.

Source: america250.utah.gov

The First Step Act, 2018

A coalition that ran from #cut50 and the ACLU to Right on Crime and the American Conservative Union passed the largest federal prison reform in decades. The Senate vote was 87 to 12, and a Republican president signed it.

Source: texaspolicy.com

Who builds it now

Condition 5 · Umber

Rules that bind the winner.

Every power you hand your side, you hand the next side that wins.

Then

In 1553 Geneva burned the theologian Michael Servetus for heresy. The next year Sebastian Castellio, a devout Protestant scholar, answered: “To kill a man is not to defend a doctrine. It is to kill a man.”33

Now

In 2021 a president refused to accept his defeat, and a crowd broke into the Capitol. Power changed hands anyway, because officials of his own party kept the rules.

The rest of the history

That’s the oldest American renaissance technology: a defeat, accepted, with a next time guaranteed. It started in 1801, when the presidency first passed from one party to its bitter rival. John Adams lost, left the capital before dawn and skipped the inauguration. Sulking is allowed.

The power flip

Instrument 5

Four powers, then four more if you want them. Decide on each one twice: first with the party you trust more in charge, then with the party you trust less. A rule you hold both ways is a principle. A rule you flip is a preference.

Decide each power twice: first with the party you trust more in charge, then with the party you trust less. A rule you keep both ways is a principle. A rule you flip is a preference.

The president can use emergency powers to act where Congress won’t: build a wall, or cancel student debt.
The government can lean on platforms and broadcasters to take down posts or shows it calls dangerous.
A state legislature can redraw its district maps in the middle of a decade to lock in its majority.
The Senate majority can end the filibuster and pass its agenda with 51 votes.
The president can pardon allies and family, even before any charge.
A new administration can fire career civil servants it considers disloyal.
Congress can add seats to the Supreme Court to change its majority.
The Justice Department can open criminal investigations into officials of the administration it replaced.

the-plural-renaissance.pages.dev · Your answers stay in this browser.

The line call

Some things are lines, not tensions.

Slavery wasn’t a trade-off between two goods. Neither is genocide. A plural posture that can’t say so is cowardice with good manners.

A test for the word “line.”

Call everything a line and every disagreement becomes a moral emergency. So test it. A line is anything that takes away a person’s or a side’s next time: violence, a rigged or refused count, a rival jailed for being a rival, a church or a paper shut for what it says. Everything inside those rules is a tension, and a tension gets argued.

From the notebook · April 2026

“the danger in crossing into this territory is not a protection of the perpetrator, but a protection of yourself from falling into a trap of justification.”

Josh Levine, on calling a person evil

Who builds it now

Condition 6 · Ink

A network that no one owns.

The last renaissance had the Republic of Letters: scholars across borders and faiths who wrote to each other, copied each other, and corrected each other, with no capital and no owner. Ours exists in pieces. Nobody has drawn the map. Here’s a first draft.

IVWho

The Republic of Letters, 2026.

People, groups, works and proofs that already build the conditions. They don’t agree with each other. That’s the point. Each one criticizes their own side in public, or builds something that people on every side use.

Start here: rivals who kept working together

Skip past the map

1 Many centers, in contact

Katherine Cramer Person · Political scientist who listens before she theorizes Sat with 39 groups in 27 Wisconsin communities to hear rural resentment in its own words before she wrote a word about it. Visit
Mónica Guzmán Person · Journalist; Braver Angels senior fellow Raised in a family split by politics, she turns that dinner table into a method: curious questions before counterarguments. Visit
John Wood Jr. Person · Braver Angels national ambassador Ran for Congress as a Republican in 2014, then turned to bridge-building; he praises people in public when they say ‘I was wrong.’ Visit
Priya Parker Person · Facilitator; author on the art of gathering Teaches hosts to give every gathering a sharp purpose and to invite good controversy instead of polite boredom. Visit
Eric Liu Person · Founder of Citizen University Built Civic Saturday, a church-shaped civic ritual of readings, songs and a civic sermon that any town can copy. Visit
Charles Marohn Person · Engineer; founder of Strong Towns A civil engineer who confessed his own field’s mistakes and now helps towns grow block by block, without waiting for a megaproject. Visit
Richard Reeves Person · Founder, American Institute for Boys and Men A center-left scholar who insists that boys’ and men’s struggles are real, and builds evidence both parties can use. Visit
Heather McGhee Person · Economist; author of The Sum of Us Shows how racism costs white Americans too, from drained public pools to starved public services, and argues for a solidarity dividend. Visit
Tim Carney Person · Conservative writer on family, church and place Found that Trump’s early primary strength was weakest where church and civic life held up, and argues for rebuilding those ties. Visit
Bob Woodson Person · Founder of the Woodson Center Has spent decades backing neighborhood healers who already solve problems where they live, instead of experts flown in from outside. Visit
Braver Angels Group · Cross-partisan membership group with local alliances Seats red and blue members together in structured workshops and debates; its 113+ local alliances can supply a co-host from the other side. Visit
Living Room Conversations Group · Free conversation guides for small groups Free one-hour guides with ground rules and timed rounds, so two people who disagree can co-host a small talk at home or online. Visit
People Powered Group · Global hub for participatory democracy Connects organizers of participatory budgeting and citizens’ assemblies across many countries and publishes free how-to guides. Visit
Participatory Budgeting Project Group · US nonprofit spreading participatory budgeting Helps cities and schools let residents decide how to spend real public money, starting with New York council districts in 2011. Visit
Strong Towns Group · Movement for incremental, solvent towns Teaches residents to read their town’s balance sheet and to build small and steady, block by block. Visit
Citizen University Group · Civic nonprofit; home of Civic Saturday Spreads a civic ritual any town can run: gather, read founding texts, sing, hear a civic sermon, meet neighbors. Visit
StoryCorps One Small Step Group · Recorded one-on-one talks across politics Matches two strangers who differ politically for a 50-minute recorded talk about their lives, not their positions. Visit
The Village Square Group · Recurring civic dinner and forum series Its ‘Agree, Disagree, Repeat’ dinners in the Tallahassee area show that the repeat, not the single event, is the point. Visit
Interintellect Group · Marketplace for ticketed salons, online and in person Lets anyone host a salon on a hard idea and keep the ticket money, less fees; the format, not a venue, holds the room. Visit
Trust for Civic Life Group · Funder collaborative for rural civic hubs Gave $7.6 million to 20 rural Civic Hubs in one round, betting on local rooms instead of national campaigns. Visit
Made By Us Group · Coalition of history museums; runs Civic Season Turns history museums into civic rooms from Juneteenth to July 4; for the 250th it planned more than 250 ‘wish walls’ nationwide. Visit
Join or Die Work · Rebecca Davis and Pete Davis, 2023 · film A documentary on Robert Putnam’s findings: America’s clubs, leagues and congregations emptied out, and democracy felt it. Visit
Democracy in America, Volume 2 Work · Alexis de Tocqueville, 1840 · book Its chapter on associations shows Americans solving problems by joining up, mostly with people like themselves, the habit The Plural wants to stretch. Visit
Reducing Exclusionary Attitudes through Interpersonal Conversation Work · Joshua Kalla and David Broockman, 2020 · paper Canvassers who swapped personal stories without judging cut exclusionary attitudes toward unauthorized immigrants for at least four months. Visit
Dedicated: The Case for Commitment in an Age of Infinite Browsing Work · Pete Davis, 2021 · book A case for long commitment over endless options: pick a place, a cause and a people, and stay. Visit
Ostbelgien’s permanent Citizens’ Council (Belgium, 2019) Proof · Proof that it works A February 2019 law in Belgium’s German-speaking community created a standing 24-member Citizens’ Council, chosen by lot, that sets topics for citizen panels. Visit
Bowling Green’s ‘What Could BG Be?’ (Kentucky, 2025) Proof · Proof that it works Bowling Green used Polis with Google Jigsaw’s AI Sensemaker to gather residents’ ideas for the city in 2050, and published the public report on 15 April 2025. Visit
Fort Collins citizens’ assembly (Colorado, 2025) Proof · Proof that it works The council voted 3-2 in August 2024 for an assembly by lot; 20 residents met in spring 2025 to advise on the future of the Hughes Stadium site. Visit

2 Keep the argument alive

Kevin Vallier Person · Philosopher of trust in polarized societies Argues that liberal institutions run on social trust, and corrects his own classical-liberal camp in public when it forgets that. Visit
Peter T. Coleman Person · Columbia conflict scientist; Difficult Conversations Lab Has run hundreds of staged moral arguments in his lab and treats polarization as a stuck system to redesign, not a bad mood to soothe. Visit
Jonathan Haidt Person · Social psychologist; co-founder of Heterodox Academy Showed that left and right run on different moral intuitions, then built a home for scholars willing to argue across them. Visit
Amanda Ripley Person · Journalist who maps high conflict Separates good conflict, which sharpens us, from high conflict, which feeds itself, and names the conflict entrepreneurs who profit from the second. Visit
Musa al-Gharbi Person · Sociologist who audits his own class Shows how highly educated progressives gain from the inequalities they denounce: a critique of the elite written from inside it. Visit
David Blankenhorn Person · Co-founder of Braver Angels Opposed same-sex marriage for years, then said in public in 2012 that he had changed his mind, and explained why. Visit
Glenn Loury and John McWhorter Person · Economist and linguist; long-running podcast partners Two Black academics who have argued on air for years, disagreeing on race and politics without ending the friendship or the show. Visit
Dan Williams Person · Philosopher of misinformation; Conspicuous Cognition Brings on guests to make the strongest case against his own views, and lets the disagreement stand in public. Visit
Coleman Hughes Person · Writer and podcaster; long cross-ideology conversations Hosts long conversations with people he disagrees with, and makes his colorblind case while taking critics’ questions head-on. Visit
John Inazu Person · Law professor; theorist of confident pluralism A Christian legal scholar who asks believers and secularists alike for tolerance, humility and patience, backed by the law of association. Visit
Essential Partners Group · Dialogue practice; Reflective Structured Dialogue Its method grew from six years of private talks between Boston pro-life and pro-choice leaders who never changed views yet kept meeting. Visit
Better Arguments Project Group · Aspen Policy Academy civic-argument program Teaches people to argue better, not less; search summaries give its first principle as ‘Take winning off the table.’ Visit
Open to Debate Group · Nonprofit debate show, formerly Intelligence Squared US Stages formal debates where the audience votes before and after, so a change of mind is visible on the scoreboard. Visit
Confident Pluralism Work · John Inazu, 2016 · book The plainest match to The Plural: tolerance, humility and patience as civic aims, tied to the law of free association. Visit
High Conflict Work · Amanda Ripley, 2021 · book How ordinary disagreements become self-feeding feuds, and the moves real people used to climb back out. Visit
Agonistics: Thinking the World Politically Work · Chantal Mouffe, 2013 · book Mouffe’s case for adversaries, not enemies: democracy should give conflict a legitimate channel instead of pretending consensus is near. Visit
The Crooked Timber of Humanity Work · Isaiah Berlin, 1990 · book Berlin’s essays on value pluralism: real goods collide with no common measure, so we must choose without a master formula. Visit
The promise and pitfalls of cross-partisan conversations for reducing affective polarization Work · Erin Santoro and David Broockman, 2022 · paper The honest limit: strangers warmed after talking about a ‘perfect day’ but not about their disagreements, and the warmth faded within months. Visit
Why depolarization is hard Work · Derek Holliday, Yphtach Lelkes and Sean Westwood, 2025 · paper Pooling 77 treatments, the average effect was about five points on a 101-point scale, and roughly three-quarters faded within a week. Visit
Hidden Tribes Work · More in Common, 2018 · paper A survey of 8,000+ Americans that found about two-thirds belong to an ‘Exhausted Majority’ tired of the fight. Visit
The Glenn Show Work · Glenn Loury with John McWhorter, 2007 · podcast Two friends who disagree on race and politics keep talking on a schedule, and the show survives every disagreement. Visit
Conflicted Work · Ian Leslie, 2021 · book Argues that disagreement, done well, is how groups get smarter, and gives practical rules for productive fights. Visit

3 Translators

Ryan Burge Person · Political scientist and former Baptist pastor Pastored a small-town Illinois church for nearly two decades while charting, with hard data, the decline of the churches he loves. Visit
James Fishkin Person · Stanford political scientist; invented deliberative polling Put 523 randomly chosen voters in one room in 2019 with balanced briefings; partisans moved closer, then mostly drifted back within a year. Visit
Hélène Landemore Person · Yale theorist of open, lottery-based democracy Makes the case that ordinary citizens picked by lot, not career politicians, belong at the center of lawmaking, and studies where it has worked. Visit
Eboo Patel Person · Founder of Interfaith America Argues that pluralism is built, not felt: people of clashing faiths running clinics, colleges and service projects together. Visit
Hahrie Han Person · Johns Hopkins scholar of organizing; SNF Agora director Follows four people through a Cincinnati megachurch’s racial-justice program to show how relationships, not single events, change people. Visit
Valarie Kaur Person · Sikh civil-rights lawyer; Revolutionary Love Project Asks fighters for justice to stay curious about their opponents even mid-fight: see no stranger, including the one who hurt you. Visit
Russell Moore Person · Christianity Today editor; evangelical dissenter Left the Southern Baptist policy post in 2021 after clashing with his own coalition, and keeps preaching to it about character and contempt. Visit
Yossi Klein Halevi Person · Israeli writer; Shalom Hartman Institute fellow Wrote letters to an imagined Palestinian neighbor telling his people’s story and asking for theirs; co-founded a program for Muslim leaders to study Judaism. Visit
Abdullah Antepli Person · Imam; Duke professor; Muslim Leadership Initiative co-founder A Muslim chaplain who studies Judaism and Zionism alongside Jews and keeps defending that encounter when his own community pushes back. Visit
Maoz Inon and Aziz Abu Sarah Person · Israeli and Palestinian peace activists; co-authors Hamas killed Inon’s parents on October 7; Abu Sarah lost his brother after Israeli detention. Both chose to write a shared future instead. Visit
Michael Wear Person · Evangelical; Center for Christianity and Public Life A former Obama White House faith adviser who tells fellow Christians that politics should express love of neighbor, not fear of enemies. Visit
Ross Douthat Person · New York Times columnist; conservative Catholic A conservative at a mostly liberal paper, who makes the case for belief to readers who don’t share it. Visit
Salena Zito Person · Reporter on the voters the coasts skip Drove more than 27,000 miles of back roads to interview Trump voters in swing counties, and reported what they said. Visit
Beth Silvers and Sarah Stewart Holland Person · A Republican and a Democrat; co-hosts of Pantsuit Politics Two Kentucky friends who have argued politics on air since 2016, and wrote a guide to doing it with grace. Visit
National Issues Forums Institute Group · Deliberative forum network with issue guides Since 1981 its guides lay out three or four options, each with costs, so a room weighs trade-offs instead of picking teams. Visit
Stanford Deliberative Democracy Lab Group · University lab running deliberative polls worldwide Runs random-sample deliberations from Texas to Mongolia to Taiwan and publishes the before-and-after results, fades included. Visit
Healthy Democracy Group · Oregon nonprofit running citizen panels by lot Runs Oregon’s Citizens’ Initiative Review, where randomly chosen voters vet a ballot measure and write a statement for every voter’s pamphlet. Visit
DemocracyNext Group · Research institute for citizens’ assemblies Pushes governments to make assemblies by lot permanent; it helped launch Oregon’s Deschutes County youth-homelessness assembly, which reported in October 2024. Visit
Interfaith America Group · Interfaith nonprofit for campuses and civic life Trains campus and civic leaders to cooperate across deep religious difference, treating pluralism as a skill to practice. Visit
One America Movement Group · Faith-leader network against toxic polarization Trains clergy from different traditions to lower the temperature of local fights, starting inside their own congregations. Visit
AND Campaign Group · Christian civic-education and organizing group Teaches Christians to engage politics for justice and a healthier culture without signing up to either party’s script. Visit
Neighborly Faith Group · Christian group for interfaith friendship Introduces Christians, especially students, to neighbors of every faith without asking anyone to hide their convictions. Visit
Hand in Hand Group · Network of bilingual Jewish-Arab schools in Israel Six schools where 2,000+ Jewish and Arab children learn in Hebrew and Arabic: distinct languages, one classroom. Visit
Parents Circle-Families Forum Group · Joint group of bereaved Israeli and Palestinian families Families who lost close relatives to the conflict speak in pairs, one Israeli and one Palestinian, and refuse revenge in front of students. Visit
Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP) Group · Coalition of Israeli-Palestinian peacebuilding groups Connects more than 200 groups that bring Israelis and Palestinians together, and works to keep them funded. Visit
Cross Purposes: Christianity’s Broken Bargain with Democracy Work · Jonathan Rauch, 2025 · book A secular gay writer asks American Christianity to recover a faith that steadies liberal democracy instead of fighting it. Visit
Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor Work · Yossi Klein Halevi, 2018 · book An Israeli explains his people’s story to an imagined Palestinian neighbor, then asks to hear the reply. Visit
Undivided: The Quest for Racial Solidarity in an American Church Work · Hahrie Han, 2024 · book Follows four people through a Cincinnati megachurch’s racial-justice program: lasting relationships, not one-off events, did the changing. Visit
Ireland: two assemblies, two referendums (2013-2018) Proof · Proof that it works Assemblies of randomly selected citizens recommended marriage equality (2013) and abortion reform (2017); voters then approved both, by 62 percent in 2015 and 66.4 percent in 2018. Visit
America in One Room (Dallas, 2019) Proof · Proof that it works In September 2019, 523 registered voters deliberated for a weekend with balanced briefings; partisans moved closer on many proposals, though views mostly drifted back within a year. Visit
The Utah Compact (2010) Proof · Proof that it works On 11 November 2010, Utah business, faith and law-enforcement leaders signed five principles to keep the state’s immigration debate humane and focused on federal solutions. Visit

4 Workshops

Oren Cass Person · Founder of American Compass A conservative who tells his own side that markets are not the whole story, and argues for a labor movement that conservatives could support. Visit
Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson Person · Co-authors of Abundance Tell their own side that its rules, reviews and lawsuits now block the housing and clean energy it says it wants. Visit
Tyler Cowen Person · Economist; Marginal Revolution blogger Reads everything, links generously to people he disputes, and argues that sustained growth is a moral duty to future people. Visit
Jennifer Pahlka Person · Code for America founder; state-capacity reformer Shows how good laws die in bad delivery, and how government can relearn to build things that work. Visit
Jason Crawford Person · Founder, Roots of Progress Institute Tells the story of how we got clean water, vaccines and cheap light, and trains new writers to argue for progress. Visit
Marc Dunkelman Person · Brown University fellow; historian of progressive gridlock Argues that progressives built the vetoes that now stop progressives from building, and traces how distrust of power became paralysis. Visit
Eli Dourado Person · Economist and permitting-reform writer Shows how environmental review now slows the clean energy and infrastructure it was meant to protect, and drafts faster rules. Visit
Samuel Hammond Person · Economist at the Foundation for American Innovation A right-of-center writer on AI and state capacity who argues government must get faster and smarter, not only smaller. Visit
Brink Lindsey Person · Niskanen Center; libertarian who changed course Left libertarian orthodoxy for the center ground and now writes about a country rich in money but poor in meaning and belonging. Visit
Ian Rowe Person · AEI senior fellow; co-founder of Vertex Partnership Academies Co-founded a network of Bronx public high schools in 2022, built on family, faith, education and enterprise. Visit
Team Rubicon Group · Veterans who respond to disasters Puts veterans and civilians of every politics on the same muck-out crew after floods and fires; the work comes first, and the bonds follow. Visit
Institute for Progress Group · Think tank for science, building and innovation Writes detailed, passable fixes for permitting, high-skill immigration and research funding, and works with both parties to enact them. Visit
Niskanen Center Group · Center-ground think tank founded by ex-libertarians Built by people who left libertarian orthodoxy; argues across camps for state capacity, permitting reform and a working safety net. Visit
Roots of Progress Institute Group · Nonprofit building a culture of progress Trains writers to make the moral case for science, technology and growth to readers of every party. Visit
Center for Building in North America Group · Nonprofit studying building codes and costs Asks why America builds fewer, costlier apartments than peer countries, starting with small rules like the second-staircase mandate. Visit
YIMBY Action Group · National network of pro-housing local chapters Organizes neighbors to show up at hearings and say yes to new homes, giving the quiet majority a voice. Visit
Abundance Work · Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, 2025 · book Argues that America chose scarcity through its own rules, and that liberals must relearn how to build homes, power and transit. Visit
Why Nothing Works Work · Marc J. Dunkelman, 2025 · book A progressive’s history of how distrust of concentrated power hardened into a veto culture that now stops progressives from building. Visit
Recoding America Work · Jennifer Pahlka, 2023 · book Shows from inside government why good laws fail in delivery, and what it takes to build public systems that work. Visit
A Time to Build Work · Yuval Levin, 2020 · book A conservative case for treating institutions as molds that form people rather than stages for performance, and for rebuilding them. Visit
Works in Progress Work · Works in Progress editors, 2020 · newsletter A magazine of practical optimism: long, careful essays on how to build more housing, energy and science, and why it stalled. Visit
New York City participatory budgeting (2011 to now) Proof · Proof that it works Since 2011, residents in participating council districts have proposed and voted on how to spend part of the city’s capital budget in their neighborhoods. Visit
Montana’s bipartisan housing package (2023) Proof · Proof that it works A coalition from Habitat for Humanity to free-market think tanks helped pass 2023 laws legalizing duplexes and backyard homes in Montana cities; courts later upheld them. Visit
Minneapolis 2040 (2018 to now) Proof · Proof that it works Minneapolis became the first big US city to end single-family-only zoning; rents stayed comparatively stable, but a 2026 Minneapolis Fed review found new building stalled. Visit
The First Step Act (2018) Proof · Proof that it works A coalition from #cut50 and the ACLU to Right on Crime and the American Conservative Union passed a federal prison reform 87 to 12 in the Senate, signed by a Republican president. Visit

5 Rules that bind the winner

Jonathan Rauch Person · Brookings writer on how free societies know Maps the unglamorous rules (editors, peer review, open dispute) that turn our fights into knowledge, and names the trolls and cancelers who corrode them. Visit
Lee Drutman Person · Political scientist arguing for more parties Says the fix is structure, not nicer people: two parties lock us in a doom loop, and proportional representation lets coalitions shift. Visit
David French Person · Evangelical conservative columnist, New York Times Defends free speech and religious liberty for his opponents as well as his allies, and argues it out with his own coalition in public. Visit
Megan Phelps-Roper Person · Left Westboro Baptist Church in 2012 Strangers online argued with her ideas yet kept treating her as a person; that patience helped her walk out of a church built on contempt. Visit
Loretta Ross Person · Reproductive-justice veteran who teaches calling in Decades of Black feminist organizing taught her to name a harmful act in private and keep the person: call in, not out. Visit
Robert P. George and Cornel West Person · Conservative and radical-democrat professors, longtime friends A Catholic conservative and a democratic socialist who still tour campuses together in 2026, disagreeing on nearly everything except truth-seeking. Visit
Daryl Davis Person · Blues musician who befriends Klan members Sits down with Klansmen to ask how they can hate him without knowing him; some later handed him their robes. Visit
Danielle Allen Person · Harvard theorist; Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation Treats democracy as a house to renovate, not a monument: concrete fixes for representation, civic education and power-sharing. Visit
Jacob Mchangama Person · Free-speech historian; The Future of Free Speech Traces free speech from Athens to social media and holds censors of the left and the right to one standard. Visit
Kelsey Piper Person · Writer at The Argument Shows her uncertainty in public and criticizes her own side when the evidence turns against it. Visit
Yuval Levin Person · AEI scholar of institutions and the Constitution A conservative who asks us to rebuild institutions that form people, and reads the Constitution as a machine for living with disagreement. Visit
Philip Wallach Person · AEI scholar who defends Congress Argues that Congress is where Americans must accommodate one another, and that party discipline has hollowed out that arena. Visit
Susan Neiman Person · Philosopher; director of the Einstein Forum A self-described leftist who argues that woke politics abandoned the left’s universalism: criticism of her own side in plain moral language. Visit
Arthur Brooks Person · Social scientist; author of Love Your Enemies Says our problem is contempt, not disagreement, and asks partisans to answer contempt with warmth. Visit
Ruy Teixeira Person · Demographer; co-founder of The Liberal Patriot Once forecast an emerging Democratic majority; now tells Democrats bluntly why working-class voters walked away. Visit
Jonah Goldberg Person · Co-founder of The Dispatch; host of The Remnant Walked away from a big conservative media platform over his side’s drift, and built an outlet that argues with right and left alike. Visit
Rachel Kleinfeld Person · Carnegie scholar of political violence Finds that violence tracks leaders who normalize it more than mass anger, so the floor needs consequences, not only dialogue. Visit
Fix Our House Group · Campaign for proportional representation in the House Makes the cross-ideological case for multi-member districts; its advisers have ranged from a Justice Democrats spokesman to a Trump-era Republican official. Visit
National Constitution Center Group · Nonpartisan museum and forum in Philadelphia Sets scholars who disagree on each clause of the Constitution side by side in its free Interactive Constitution. Visit
Heterodox Academy Group · Membership group for open inquiry in academia Asks professors and students to welcome disagreement on campus and to say so under their own names. Visit
BridgeUSA Group · Student-run campus bridging chapters Students host campus discussions where the goal is understanding across party lines, not winning the clip. Visit
Builders (formerly Starts With Us) Group · Cross-partisan network against us-versus-them Asks people to refuse dehumanization and political violence and then build together; it tested an AI public-input tool in Texas. Visit
FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) Group · Free-speech legal and advocacy nonprofit Defends the speech of students and professors on the left and the right, and ranks campuses on free expression. Visit
Dignity Index Group · Eight-point scale from contempt to dignity Scores what people say about opponents on an eight-point scale, judging the words, not the speaker’s tribe. Visit
Over Zero Group · Nonprofit against identity-based violence Studies how dangerous speech prepares the ground for violence and builds tools for communities to interrupt it early. Visit
The Constitution of Knowledge Work · Jonathan Rauch, 2021 · book Describes the rule-bound network that turns disagreement into knowledge, and the troll and cancel tactics that attack it. Visit
Mere Civility Work · Teresa Bejan, 2017 · book Uses early-modern fights over toleration to defend a thin civility that permits rude disagreement instead of silencing it. Visit
Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop Work · Lee Drutman, 2020 · book Argues that the two-party trap is a design flaw, and that proportional representation would let shifting coalitions replace permanent war. Visit
On the Side of the Angels Work · Nancy L. Rosenblum, 2008 · book A defense of parties and partisans: organized sides, held to an ethic of partisanship, are how democracy regulates its rivalries. Visit
Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media Work · Jacob Mchangama, 2022 · book Each new medium, from the press to the internet, set off a panic and a crackdown; Mchangama argues for one standard for every side. Visit
Why Civil Resistance Works Work · Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan, 2011 · book Across 323 campaigns from 1900 to 2006, nonviolent resistance succeeded about twice as often as violent insurgency. Visit
The Interactive Constitution Work · National Constitution Center, 2015 · tool Each clause gets a shared reading plus separate essays from scholars who disagree: agreed text first, named dissent second. Visit
Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century Work · American Academy of Arts and Sciences commission, 2020 · paper A cross-partisan commission’s plan to renew American democracy by its 250th birthday, from electoral design to civic infrastructure. Visit
Moral Maze Work · BBC Radio 4, 1990 · podcast A panel of four cross-examines witnesses on where a moral line should fall; a model of argument outside the US frame. Visit
Accidental Courtesy: Daryl Davis, Race & America Work · Matthew Ornstein, 2016 · film Follows Davis into Klan members’ homes and keeps his critics, including Black activists, inside the film. Visit
Baldwin v. Buckley at the Cambridge Union Work · James Baldwin and William F. Buckley Jr., 1965 · film A speaker who refuses to treat his own humanity as debatable still debates, and carries the room. Visit
Mongolia’s legally required deliberative poll (2017) Proof · Proof that it works A 2017 law requires a deliberative poll before some constitutional amendments; that April, 669 randomly sampled citizens deliberated for a weekend in Ulaanbaatar. Visit
Oregon’s Citizens’ Initiative Review (2010 to now) Proof · Proof that it works Since 2010, small panels of randomly chosen Oregon voters study a ballot measure for days and write a statement printed in the official voters’ pamphlet. Visit
Alaska’s open top-four primary and ranked-choice general election (2020 to now) Proof · Proof that it works Alaskans adopted the system in 2020; a 2024 repeal measure failed by a few hundred votes, 743 after the December recount, so all candidates still face all voters. Visit
New Zealand’s switch to proportional representation (1993) Proof · Proof that it works After a 1986 Royal Commission recommended it, New Zealanders voted in a 1993 referendum for mixed-member proportional representation; the first MMP election came in 1996. Visit

6 A network no one owns

Glen Weyl Person · Economist; co-author of Plurality Designs tools that reward agreement across difference, like quadratic voting and quadratic funding, and stays fair to the people he criticizes. Visit
Audrey Tang Person · Taiwan’s former digital minister; Plurality co-author Helped Taiwan turn online fights into maps of shared ground, from Uber rules to scam ads, and treats civic code as a commons. Visit
Aviv Ovadya Person · Bridging-ranking researcher; AI & Democracy Foundation CEO Proposes feeds that lift posts liked across divides rather than posts that enrage one side: an engineering answer to the outrage machine. Visit
Jonathan Stray Person · Berkeley AI scientist and conflict scholar Asks not how to end American conflict but how to make it better, and how recommender systems could cool it instead of feeding it. Visit
Divya Siddarth Person · Co-founder, Collective Intelligence Project Runs Global Dialogues, which asks large samples of people in many countries what they want from AI, then hands the data to builders. Visit
Nadia Asparouhova Person · Writer on open source and antimemetic ideas Studied who maintains the free code the internet runs on, and why some vital ideas resist spreading. Visit
Computational Democracy Project (Polis) Group · Nonprofit behind the open-source Polis tool Its Polis tool maps where a crowd agrees across factions; Taiwan used it in 2015 to find common ground on Uber rules. Visit
Plurality Institute Group · Research hub for plural technology Funds and tests tools for cooperation across difference, such as the BridgingBot moderator and the OpenBallot voter guide used in 2026. Visit
Collective Intelligence Project Group · Nonprofit lab for collective governance of AI Asks large global samples what they want from AI and opens the data so builders and policymakers must answer to it. Visit
New_Public Group · Nonprofit building healthy local online places Builds Roundabout, a neighbors-only platform run by trained local stewards; Chicago Public Media partnered with it in August 2026. Visit
MIT Center for Constructive Communication and Cortico Group · MIT lab and nonprofit for listening at scale Records small-group conversations in libraries and towns and uses AI to surface what people share across lines. Visit
Death Cafe Group · Ownerless social franchise for talking about death A free guide and no owner let volunteers hold 25,017 talks about mortality in 100 countries: proof a format can spread itself. Visit
Plurality: The Future of Collaborative Technology and Democracy Work · Glen Weyl, Audrey Tang and the ⿻ Community, 2024 · book A free, openly licensed book that treats Taiwan’s digital democracy as proof that technology can widen cooperation instead of flattening it. Visit
Palaces for the People Work · Eric Klinenberg, 2018 · book Libraries, parks and barbershops are social infrastructure: the physical places where strangers become neighbors and towns survive disasters. Visit
Bridging Systems Work · Aviv Ovadya and Luke Thorburn, 2023 · paper Proposes ranking and moderation that lift content people across divides both rate well: the logic behind Community Notes, generalized. Visit
AI can help humans find common ground in democratic deliberation Work · Michael Henry Tessler and others (Google DeepMind), 2024 · paper In tests with 5,734 UK participants, an AI mediator’s group statements were preferred to human mediators’ 56 percent of the time. Visit
Polis Work · Computational Democracy Project, 2018 · tool Open-source software that clusters a crowd by how it votes on short statements, then shows what every cluster agrees on. Visit
vTaiwan and the Uber rules (Taiwan, 2015) Proof · Proof that it works In 2015 a four-week Polis conversation sorted Taiwanese into pro- and anti-Uber clusters, surfaced statements both accepted, and fed face-to-face talks that shaped new rules. Visit
Taiwan’s national deliberation on AI and information integrity (2024) Proof · Proof that it works On 23 March 2024, 447 randomly selected Taiwanese deliberated online in small groups on how platforms and AI should handle fraud and fake content. Visit
Community Notes and the bridging algorithm (2021 to now) Proof · Proof that it works X’s Community Notes shows a note only when raters who usually disagree both rate it helpful; Meta began US tests of the same open-source algorithm on 18 March 2025. Visit
Death Cafe’s ownerless spread (2011 to now) Proof · Proof that it works A free host guide and no central owner let volunteers run 25,017 Death Cafes in 100 countries, by the site’s own count on 3 November 2026. Visit

This map is a start, not a canon. It has gaps, and it has people we’ll turn out to be wrong about. No sitting officials or candidates. Nobody who dehumanizes a group.

V17 September 2037

A letter from the 250th Constitution Week.

On 17 September 2037 the Constitution turns 250. If you’re 26 today, you’ll be 37 that night. Here’s one version of the country on that day, if the conditions hold. It’s not a prediction. It’s a dare.

How old are you today?

You

You can say where you might be wrong.

You still hold strong views, and you can say without flinching where you might be wrong. This year you changed your mind twice, in public. Two people unfollowed you. Forty people asked how.

You · 17 September 2037. One dot with a ring around it: you.

The table

Eight neighbors, four politics, one question.

On the first Thursday of the month, eight neighbors who vote four different ways eat together and argue about one question. They leave with a list of what they still disagree about. It’s shorter than last month’s, and more precise.

The table · 17 September 2037. Eight dots in a circle, each one joined to the other seven. One of them is you.

The street

Small got a fighting chance.

The hardware store, the bookstore and the clinic on your street run on AI tools that cost what a phone plan costs. Some jobs didn’t come back, and the fight over who owns the tools is still on. But small and local got a fighting chance again.

The street · 17 September 2037. Thirty dots in six small groups down one street. Each group holds together, and each one has a thread to the next.

Already in motion: 30% of American workers already use AI a few times a week. Towns are relearning to grow block by block.34

The town

The fights happen early. Then the cranes go up.

Your town settles its hardest land-use fights in a citizens’ assembly picked by lot, early and in public. Then it builds. It finished more homes last year than in the whole decade before 2026. Rents stopped rising faster than wages.

The town · 17 September 2037. Sixty-four dots in nine clusters: eight around one in the middle, with threads to the middle and to the neighbors.

Already in motion: Austin built, and asking rents fell 16% in a year. A Colorado city already gave a land-use fight to residents picked by lot.35

The network

Outrage still exists. It pays less.

Your feed ranks posts by whether people who usually disagree both found them useful. Outrage still gets clicks. It no longer gets the top of the page. The most-shared post in your county last week was a fight about a bridge, settled with a better bridge.

The network · 17 September 2037. Many more clusters, spread wide. Threads jump between clusters far apart, and no cluster runs the rest.

Already in motion: Taiwan used this kind of tool in 2015 to find rules for Uber that both camps accepted.

The republic

Power changed hands, and nobody burned anything.

Power has changed hands twice since 2026. Each time the losers grumbled, organized and came back. Tonight, in all fifty states, people who wouldn’t share a room in 2026 argue about the Constitution itself. That argument is the celebration.

The republic · 17 September 2037. The whole crowd in seven groups, with long threads across the country. Your dot is still ringed.

The recognition

You know who you are. So does your side.

If you feel politically homeless, here’s the hard news. The politically homeless are a block too: comfortable, tidy, thin. Your own side is whoever you already agree with, jersey or not. Argue with them.

From the notebook · October 2025

“We don’t just struggle with talking with those we oppose. When we engage with opposing views, we often have an even harder time engaging with our own side”

Josh Levine

The posture, in ten lines. Tap the one that’s hardest for you.

Read across the aisle for understanding, not ammunition.
In rooms of total agreement, grow restless.
Befriend those who see the world differently.
Hold deep convictions in creative tension with wonder.
Delight when someone changes your mind.
Seek the illumination of other eyes.
Choose productive friction over false peace.
Value intellectual courage above tribal loyalty.
Practice the art of changing minds, including your own.
Think together, especially when you disagree.

Your print

What you built on the way down.

Nothing leaves this page unless you send it. Press and hold the card, or right-click it, to save it.

Show my dot

This link shows your role, your power flip answers, your fabric count and how far your guess missed. It doesn’t show your side.

Make things with the people you argue with.

In Toledo, a book that changed Europe took two people from two faiths at one desk. Your part takes two people as well: you, and someone you’d rather argue with.

In 2037 somebody will decide whether this was a renaissance. They won’t grade our posts. They’ll count the rooms.

This isn’t the collapse. It’s the pamphlet war.Last time, people built their way out.

Pick the thing that’s wrong with America.

The cartoon in your head

We just got a printing press.

Six conditions for a renaissance.

Many centers, in contact.

Find the renaissance corner

Keep the argument alive.

Two pulls and a shock

Translators.

Workshops.

The fabric audit

Rules that bind the winner.

The power flip

A network that no one owns.

The Republic of Letters, 2026.

1 Many centers, in contact

2 Keep the argument alive

3 Translators

4 Workshops

5 Rules that bind the winner

6 A network no one owns

A letter from the 250th Constitution Week.

You can say where you might be wrong.

Eight neighbors, four politics, one question.

Small got a fighting chance.

The fights happen early. Then the cranes go up.

Outrage still exists. It pays less.

Power changed hands, and nobody burned anything.

Find your part.

You know who you are. So does your side.

What you built on the way down.