What Riding Trains Taught Me About Americans

Rail Travel Induces a Reverie and Intimacy Among Its Diverse Passengers

Amos, a one-legged Amish man, was having trouble with his new prosthesis. He left the leg in his sleeping compartment and came to the diner on crutches—a hazardous ambulation on a moving train.

Because Amish do not buy health insurance nor take Medicare or Social Security, he rode The Southwest Chief from Chicago to California and went to Mexico to see a doctor. He paid cash for the leg in Tijuana.

“A van picked us up at border and took us to a clinic,” he told me. “They have everything down …

By James McCommons | August 17, 2017

Trump Is Right That the System Is “Rigged”—and He’s Stacking It More

Average Americans Are Losing Power While Self-Serving Elites Lose Public Trust

By Janine R. Wedel | May 16, 2017

Pundits nearly always attribute Donald Trump’s success to right-wing “populism.” This conclusion is dangerously misleading. Trump’s rise is rooted firmly in his ability to make an old-fashioned word—“rigged”—work in surprisingly …

Are Americans Fully Committed to Democracy?

The Best Form of Government Is Only as Strong as the People and Patterns of Behavior That Defend It

By Larry Diamond | March 1, 2017

Among the many different forms of government, democracies are unique in the extent to which their stability depends on legitimacy—a belief on the part of the public that the system …

Winning Freedom From Guantánamo With Forbearance and Trust

In the Shadow of Torture and Isolation, an American Lawyer and an Afghan Prisoner Bond Over Melted Mocha Ice Cream

By Anne Richardson | November 9, 2016

I first visited Obaidullah at Guantánamo Bay in the spring of 2009. Before that first meeting, all I knew were the disturbing accusations against him, that he had fired his …

Americans Mostly Kill the Ones We Know

For All the Media Obsession With Mass Shootings, Homicides in the U.S. Are Most Often About Familiarity and Contempt

By Scott H. Decker | August 6, 2016

Turn on your television in the coming months, and you will see and hear just how much Americans fear strangers and guns.

Yet when it comes to violent crime, especially …

Americans Have Been Fed Up With the Presidential Nomination Process for More Than 200 Years

And No Matter the Reform, the Primary Pendulum Between Elite Power and Voter Influence Will Keep Swinging

By Martin Cohen | July 22, 2016

Americans love to argue about the rules of picking major party presidential nominees. But no matter the method, these contests are essentially the same: They pit party elites against the …

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