Running for President of 11 Nations

America Has Never Been United, And That Makes Running For the White House That Much Harder

Campaigning for president in a continent-spanning nation of more than 300 million people is a daunting task, but it’s made all the more difficult by the profound differences between our cultural regions. What sells to partisan voters in New Hampshire may scare off South Carolinians from the very same party. The political certainties of Mississippi or East Texas are the stuff of controversy in Maine or Western Oregon. Most swing states swing precisely because they are riven by deep cultural fractures, as in Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Missouri. The candidates may …

The Triumph of 9/10

The Day that was to Change Everything Didn't

September 11th was the only day I was ever invited to breakfast at Windows on the World, atop New York City’s World Trade Center. I had no intention of going, …

Keeping the United States United

At Washington Conference, Studying What Divides and Unites Americans

Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor opened a conference on social cohesion in the United States by offering up the method of bringing people together she used as majority …

Shot Heard ’Round the Block

Someone Was Nearly Killed Outside My West Adams House. Who Else Noticed?

Last month, I was pulled out of my descent into sleep by a shotgun blast from outside my window. I don’t know how I could tell it was a shotgun, …

Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

 

Peter Lovenheim’s project of sleeping over at his neighbors’ homes had an inauspicious start.

“The night I left for my first sleepover,” he said, “my then-14 year old daughter Valerie saw …

Friends-in-Law

Governments Don't Promote Friendship - But They Should

Our cultural zeitgeist clearly pays homage to friendship. Some of the most successful TV shows are about friendship: Seinfeld, Friends, and How I Met Your Mother are obvious ones, but …