Newsletter #429 — February 27, 2026

by Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess

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Highlighted Links

A few suggestions about links that we think are especially interesting.

• Israel / Hamas War
  Trump’s Iranian Dilemma — An excellent summary of the complex issues surrounding possible US actions against Iran.
• US Politics
  What the Roberts Court Is Actually Trying to Accomplish — A hopeful article that dispels the myth that the Supreme Court is merely a Trump administration "rubber stamp." Instead, in these difficult times, it seems like it is honestly trying to reinvigorate democracy.
• Israel / Hamas War
  Why Would Israelis Want War? — An effort by an Israeli to explain what it means to face the genuinely existential threat and why war, for all its horrors, may be necessary. This is something that is hard for people who have never faced such a threat to understand.
• Saving Democracy
  Justice Gorsuch Tries to Revive Congress — For those on both the left and the right to think that the US presidency has grown too powerful, an article explaining how Justice Gorsuch is seeking to reinvigorate Congress and, with it, the system of checks and balances.
• Israel / Hamas War
  Iranian Protesters Recount the ‘War Zone’ That Left Thousands Dead — Finally, despite the Draconian Internet blackout, horrific information is emerging about what really happened when the government put down Iran's January protests.
• Theories of Change
  SCALPEL vs. CHAINSAW—Why Both Parties Keep Blowing It — A comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of the two basic approaches to governmental reform — radical change or incremental adjustments.
• US Politics
  The Revenge of the Dummymander — Gerrymandering undermines democracy by deliberately denying voters the opportunity to cast a meaningful ballot. Dummymandering is what happens when gerrymanders wind up hurting, rather than helping, the party that that pushes such redistricting plans through.

Reader Suggested Links

Highlighting links suggested by our readers. Please send us links to things that you find useful.

• Saving Democracy
  How Will We Know When We Have Lost Our Democracy? — We agonize a lot about the possibility that we may be "losing our democracy." This article helps us understand what, exactly, we should be worrying about.
• Freedom of Speech 
  Professors Are Being Watched: ‘We’ve Never Seen This Much Surveillance’ — An update on the kind of politically-motivated scrutiny, from all sides, that university faculty are now routinely subjected to.
• Israel / Hamas War
  Terror tunnels and snipers: Life on Gaza’s yellow line — A window into what the Gaza cease-fire is really like along the yellow line that separates Israeli from Hamas-controlled areas.
• Israel / Hamas War
  We are not alone in the fight against Holocaust denial — A story about those who are trying to preserve the memory of the Holocaust at a time when far too many people are concluding that it's inconvenient to believe that such a thing could possibly have happened.
• Israel / Hamas War
  We are all Jews here — The story of genuine heroism from a World War II prisoner of war camp. When asked by their German captors to produce their Jewish prisoners, everyone claimed to be Jewish.
• Freedom of Speech 
  The Call is Coming From Inside the Library — News that politically motivated efforts to determine what will and will not be included in public libraries comes from internal and external sources.

Colleague Activities

Highlighting things that our conflict and peacebuilding colleagues are doing that contribute to efforts to address the hyper-polarization problem.

• Saving Democracy
  The Decline of the Republic–and Philanthropy’s Role in It — This is the second of Daniel Stid's two-part series on the mounting challenges facing republican government in the United States and how they intersect with civil society. 
• Social / Economic Complexity
  Rethinking sovereignty in practice: directions of travel over finish lines — Complex systems change. So instead of pretending the future is stable, you start from where you actually are and ask: Given this reality, what directions of travel are genuinely open to us?
• Developing a Unifying Vision
  An Invitation to a New Civic Future — An open letter sharing a new civic future — where people feel agency over their lives, where neighbors are connected through relationships of trust, and where communities have the power to shape their own futures.
• Artificial Intelligence
  An Economic Dignity Compact for the AI Age — Technology does not shape our destiny. We still have the power to do that—if we keep human well-being, happiness, and dignity top of mind.
• Social / Economic Complexity
  The Democracy-Prosperity Link — How Donald Trump’s anti-democratic actions threaten America’s long-term prosperity.
• Authoritarianism
  Think Tanks in an Authoritarian Moment — When the “war of ideas” meets the war on knowledge, how can ideas come out on top?
• Saving Democracy
  What Americans Think of Words like “Democracy” and “Authoritarianism” In These Times — Americans remain strikingly united in their positive perceptions of core civic terms like “freedom,” “community,” and “democracy.” However, “authoritarianism” is broadly disliked.
• Climate / Environment / Health
  Storm watch: My chat with climate policy expert Roger Pielke Jr. — James Pethokoukis talks with Roger Pielke Jr. about climate change, particularly the benefits of embracing new energy technology and identifying some easy wins.
• Israel / Hamas War
  The Arab Spring Rollback and Varieties of Arab ‘Autocratization’ — This is an introduction to the Toda Peace Institute's report series "An Eye on Arab De-democratization."
• Saving Democracy
  5 Questions to Ask Before You Vote — Voting based on who will actually govern effectively is hard. It requires asking questions that go deeper than party labels, campaign slogans, and who "won" the last debate.
• Developing a Unifying Vision
  The Belonging Handbook — Practical lessons for local communities on building belonging, bridging differences, and cultivating shared prosperity from peers who have walked the walk.

• Networking
  Networks, Agreements & Systems Change — Humanity United's Jesse Eaves explores how the agreements that guide relationships and networks are key to transforming the root causes of violence, exploitation, and injustice.

   

News and Opinion

From around the web, more insight into the nature of our conflict problems, limits of business-as-usual thinking, and things people are doing to try to make things better. (Formerly, Beyond Intractability in Context.)

• Race / Anti-Racism
  The Unprotected Class: How Anti-White Racism is Tearing America Apart — As the left continues its efforts to protect its marginalized constituents (the protected classes), a review of an important new book that looks at these efforts from the perspective of those that the protected classes are being protected from.
• US Politics
  Iranian Students Protest as Anger Grows — The story about continuing Iranian protests against the government -- protests that continue despite the fact that the approximately 40,000 protesters were killed by the regime last month with countless more imprisoned and tortured.
• Superpower Conflict
  After Cuba completes its failed-state collapse, then what? — A report on the degree to which Cuba was already a failed state before President Trump cut off access to Venezuelan oil and the degree to which that has made things worse. Where will this end?
• Communication Complexity
  The Orality Theory of Everything — More food for thought as we think about a world in which the ideas that motivate people come, not from the written word, but from the spoken word (as transmitted with high-tech media).
• Israel / Hamas War
  The New Constitution of Palestine — A report on the proposed new constitution for Palestine -- a document that uses progressive sounding language to hide its commitment to the destruction of Israel and opposition to any kind of functioning democracy.
• US Politics
  Is a New Sunbelt Populism Rising? — News that the Trump administration's departure from so many of the promises that it made to its supporters is opening the door to a new kind of populism -- one based on the left, not the right.
• Superpower Conflict
  Marco Rubio’s Impressive Speech — A positive report on Secretary of State Rubio's big speech at the Munich security conference (evidence that there is some support for some of the issues that President Trump raises).
• Superpower Conflict
  No, It’s Not Back to Business as Usual — A critical analysis of Rubio's Munich speech -- one that argues that it merely sugarcoats the dangers presented by Trrump's policies.
• US Politics
  Trump Is His Own Worst Enemy — From the perspective of those who supported at least some of the major goals of the Trump administration, an article that highlights ways in which they think thathe is undermining his cause.
• Psychological Complexity
  What Kind Of Apes Are We? — An example of the kind of debate and discussion that we ought to be encouraging as we struggle to understand our place in the world.
• Corruption
  The Age of Kleptocracy — From Foreign Affairs, an explanation of how runaway corruption has produced a new kleptocratic era -- In which societies are ruled by thieves.
• Communication Complexity
  Books and screens — More food for thought as we try to understand complex psychological and cognitive differences in the way in which we process the printed word and high-tech media.
• Education
  Attention is all you need to bankrupt a university — A thought-provoking article that compares the way in which AI's large language models work with the way that universities have historically tried to train students.
• Violence
  Historians Confirm: Tomorrow Won’t Be Better Than Today — An effort to try to understand and explain the complex psychology that determines how humans respond when unimaginable horror engulfs their society.
• Theories of Change
  How Groups Kill New (Possibly Good) Ideas in "The Room" — An interesting article for those trying to understand how group dynamics influence our collective problem-solving capabilities.
• Violence
  When Revolution Bloomed and Died in Damascus — As US hyper-polarization continues to spiral out of control, an article that helps us understand what happens when societies deteriorate into all-out civil war and authoritarianism.
• Family / Gender / LBGTQ+
  Young Men Aren’t the Only Ones Struggling — A reminder that our frequent failure to offer young people a future that they can look forward to applies to young women as well as young men.

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About the MBI Newsletters

Two or three times a week, Guy and Heidi Burgess, the BI Directors, share some of our thoughts on political hyper-polarization and related topics. We also share essays from our colleagues and other contributors, and every week or so, we devote one newsletter to annotated links to outside readings that we found particularly useful relating to U.S. hyper-polarization, threats to peace (and actual violence) in other countries, and related topics of interest. Each Newsletter is posted on BI, and sent out by email through Substack to subscribers. You can sign up to receive your copy here and find the latest newsletter here or on our BI Newsletter page, which also provides access to all the past newsletters, going back to 2017.

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