Colleague, News, and Opinion Links for the Week of July 27, 2025
Newsletter #371 — July 27, 2025
by Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess
Highlighted Links
A few suggestions about links that we think are especially interesting.
- US Politics
Why Do So Many People Think Trump Is Good? — Thoughtful reflections on a question that many have been trying to answer, what are the social changes that have broken down the taboos that, in normal times, would have made the Trump presidency impossible. - Israel / Hamas War
The Great Misinterpretation: How Palestinians View Israel — A must-listen-to account of the long history leading up to the current conflict between Israel and its neighbors -- an account that explains how understandable judgments can lead to catastrophe. - Social / Economic Complexity
The Choice Between Cheap Groceries and Everything Else — An insightful analysis of the contradictions inherent in Zohran Mamdani’s progressive, socialist agenda. - Superpower Conflict
Does Trump understand what ‘the West’ is? Does the West itself know? — A review of the long-running conflict between liberal democratic societies and their authoritarian rivals with related questions about the effectiveness of Trump administration policies. - Social / Economic Complexity
America Won’t Exist If We Can’t Build Things — An examination of the conflict between the globalized interdependent economy and the need to maintain the industrial base critical to national defense. - US Politics
A Final, Comprehensive Look at How Trump Won in 2024 — After almost 9 months of data crunching, political scientists are now able to offer us an accurate and comprehensive view of the trends that gave Donald Trump a second presidency. - Superpower Conflict
Who Is Winning the World War? — An argument for seeing the explosion of ongoing crises as part of a larger global conflict and clash of civilizations -- something that, if we are not careful, could lead to a third World War.
Reader Suggested Links
Highlighting links suggested by our readers. Please send us links to things that you find useful.
- Developing a Unifying Vision
Bobby Kennedy, a 1968 Liberal Patriot — Another "if it's been done it must be possible" story. This one looks at the promising political philosophy underlying Robert Kennedy's campaign for the presidency (prior to his 1968 assassination). - Constructive Communication
Telling Stories of Aliveness: A Call for Regenerative Culture — From extracting to cultivating, this article explains how storytelling can help shift from a culture of commodity to one of ecology. - Israel / Hamas War
Everything you think about Gaza is based on a lie. — Reflections on the enormous implications of the global media's willingness to abandon basic journalistic ethics and refuse to acknowledge the biased nature of Hamas-controlled information coming out of Gaza. - Race / Anti-Racism
Let's have an authentic racial reckoning. — From Tangle, an organization devoted to helping us see both sides of a story, thoughts about how we might have the genuinely healing "racial reckoning." - Israel / Hamas War
The massacre of the Druze — The same kind of horrors inflicted on Israel on October 7 are now being visited on the Druze and nobody seems to care (except Israel). - Terror
When Women Are Radicalised — A challenge to the widespread assumption that radical political beliefs are the product of toxic masculinity and something that only men believe in.
Colleague Activities
Highlighting things that our conflict and peacebuilding colleagues are doing that contribute to efforts to address the hyper-polarization problem.
- Peacebuilding
Democracy Lighthouse —The Lighthouse is a new research and publications platform from the Toda Peace Institute's Global Challenges for Democracy Program with information for all those interested in addressing global threats to democracy. - Constructive Communication
Program helps bridge political divides by connecting people through personal stories — PBS' News Hour profiled Civity's program in Rhode Island, where they are trying to rebuild trust across the red-blue divide. "When people are given the opportunity, they choose to connect and care. This gives us hope." - US Politics
What Would a Third Party Need to Succeed? — Third parties could make for healthier politics, but we'd need voting reform first, say Sofia Scarlat and Jonathan Stray at Better Conflict Bulletin. - Media Reform
Social Media Can Support or Undermine Democracy – It Comes Down to How It’s Designed — An article by our colleague Lisa Schirch, about the ways much social media is being designed to optimize profit and political power. However, it can be designed to reinforce democracy instead. - Civil Society
(Part 2 of 2) Gradually and Then Suddenly: The Sixty-Year Crack-up of Federal Funding for Nonprofits — The Trump Administration has decimated longstanding patterns of federally-funded, nonprofit-delivered services. But the system's many and mounting contradictions made it a pushover. - Civil Society
Shrinking Civic Space, Digital Funding, and Legitimacy in a Post-Truth Era — The shrinking of civic space, the decline in digital funding, and the erosion of legitimacy are not just abstract concerns—they are existential threats to the future of democracy. - De-Escalation Strategies
When the World Feels on Fire, Must We Keep Shouting? — In the final chapter of Outrage on the Mic, David Beckemeyer traces the evolution of rage-as-a-strategy in media -- from the firebrand preachers of the 1930s to today’s slick, emotionally charged podcasts. - Peacebuilding
Global Peace Index 2025 — The GPI ranks 163 independent states and territories using 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators to surface key trends in peace, ascertain its economic value, and identify prospects for the development of sustainable peaceful societies. - Saving Democracy
Endorse the Fair Representation Act — The Fair Representation Act seeks to reduce gerrymandering by implementing ranked choice voting, multi-winner congressional districts and uniform rules for congressional redistricting. - Constructive Communication
What can social listening tell us about the bridge-building movement? — More in Common analyzed user data from nearly a million followers of bridge-building organizations on X (formerly Twitter). Here they share how these social media users compare to typical X users. - Leadership
Nourishing Liberatory Leadership: Lessons from the John W. Mack Fellows — A cohort of 40 southern California leaders have worked together to disrupt harmful norms, leading with care, shared power, and the goal of sustainability. This website shares their reports. - Peacebuilding
Briefing Paper - Digitalization, Peace and Security Nexus — This paper outlines the opportunities and risks digital tools present, particularly in fragile contexts, and demonstrates how CSOs are navigating this evolving nexus. - Developing a Unifying Vision
The Problem with Empathy — In recent years, empathy has come under siege—from conservatives who see it as weakness and from liberals who wield it like a sword: Is the word actually dividing us more than bringing us together? - De-Escalation Strategies
Violence de-escalation trainings are key to making movements stronger — As provocateurs try to discredit protests, having civilians trained in the skills of de-escalation gives people power a greater chance of success. - Peacebuilding
The Council on Technology and Social Cohesion's Expo 2025 — Videos from the Council's US summer meeting showcased innovations from the Council's six thematic hubs: prosocial tech policy and design, digital peacebuilding, deliberative tech, conflict prevention, and LLMs and AI agents. - Saving Democracy
Can Citizens’ Assemblies Become a Permanent Process in the U.S.? — The question now is not whether citizens’ assemblies work --they do -- but whether the United States, with its deep-seated political traditions and institutional inertia, can adopt them meaningfully and at scale. - Constructive Communication
Listening for (a) Change — Longtime friend and peacebuilder Chip Hauss reflects on how he (and most of us) have allowed our listening skills to atrophy, and how reviving them can bring wanted change — in us and others. - Developing a Unifying Vision
Contempt Can’t Live in The Light — “To get less contempt, we need to expose contempt, and to expose contempt, we need to surround it with dignity.” - Violence
Mitigating Threats Against School Board Officials: Mixed Methods Research to Understand and Respond to Rising Hostility — This report from the Bridging Divides Initiative reveals that school board officials across the country are facing high levels of hostility, undermining their ability to serve their communities effectively and safely. - Peacebuilding
The Choice Is Still Clear: Renewing the UN Charter at 80 — The text of a speech delivered on 26 June 2025 to mark the 80th anniversary of the signing of the Charter of the United Nations. It calls for a reaffirmation of the charters' founding principles: peace, dignity, and international cooperation. - Networking
The Original Protocol Was Love: Building a Networked Civilization from the Ground Up — The spread of early Christianity and the architecture of the internet both succeeded through simple, decentralized protocols. This insight can help us build a new, trustworthy network of communities today. - Conflict Advice
Managing Stress, Anxiety, and Hopelessness in Times of Crisis — From Scot Nakagawa, lessons from immigrants, refugees, and activists who have survived the collapse of the familiar. - Saving Democracy
How Do We Rebuild Institutions That Serve Citizens? — From Common Sense, description of one important aspect of their 52-point plan for renewing democracy.
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.)
- Hate Mongering
I Hate, Therefore I Am — The psychological exploration of what happens when we allow our political enmities to define our identity. - De-Escalation Strategies
America Needs a Nonaggression Pact — An interesting proposal for taming the most dangerous aspect of hyper-polarization -- apply the principles underlying nonaggression treaties to domestic politics. - Developing a Unifying Vision
Working-Class Abundance — A critique and a sympathetic proposal for amending the Abundance Agenda to focus more on the needs of grassroots citizens and less on the needs of the meritocratic elite. - Constructively Addressing Complex Issues
The crisis of expertise is about values — An excellent analysis of the complex relationship between objective fact-finding and moral value judgments. - Superpower Conflict
Trump Is Winning the Race to the Bottom — A stark comparison between the way in which the United States responded to the first Cold War's Sputnik threat and the Trump administration's reaction to the second Cold War's Deep Seek threat. - US Politics
The Cities and States That Are Getting It Right — Evidence that there are political jurisdictions that have figured out how to reform government operations in ways that really do make them efficient and effective. - Israel / Hamas War
Atomic Jihad — A chilling analysis of what might happen should the jihadi culture that brought us suicide bombings gain ability to attack with suicide atomic bombers. - Constructively Addressing Complex Issues
Trump’s ‘Gold Standard’ for Science Manufactures Doubt — A critique of President Trump's scientific reform efforts, arguing that they do not sensibly grapple with unavoidable scientific uncertainty. - Nihilists
Why Young People Are Voting to Burn It All Down — An analysis of a particularly important threat to the sustainability of democratic societies -- the fact that far too many young people have become disillusioned with the society they are about to inherit. - Education
We Can Still Save Higher Education — Amid intense and widespread criticism of higher education, this article offers a constructive response -- a proposed strategy that higher education could use to re-earn the public's trust. - Developing a Unifying Vision
Liberalism Needs Community — An enlightening exploration of a critical topic: what common beliefs are needed to hold together the diverse liberal societies with their many deep-rooted differences? - Family / Gender / LBGTQ+
Can Progressives Get Behind Parental Rights for All? — A call for compromise based on what we call "mirror" building – imagining how we would react if the other side did the same things that we are doing. - Progressive Left
The Far-Left’s obsession with victimhood is making minorities less safe. — A provocative and controversial argument that the left's constant focus on oppressed, victim populations is actually counterproductive. - Social / Economic Complexity
Free-market economics is working surprisingly well — A defense of the often maligned free-market and the power of Adam Smith's "invisible hand "-- something we need to protect, even as we work to limit capitalism's "invisible fist." - Israel / Hamas War
The next Iranian massacre is unfolding in plain sight — A terrifying report on what is now unfolding in Iran that emphasizes just how hard it is for protest movements to successfully challenge ruthless and brutal authoritarian regimes. - Family / Gender / LBGTQ+
Family Structure Matters to Student Achievement. What Should We Do With That? — An article asking us to grapple with an uncomfortable tension -- the desire to treat all family structures equally and the fact that some family situations undermine a child's chance for success. - Theories of Change
Should the Heterodox Academy Prioritize Fighting Trump's Authoritarian Assaults Over Wokeness on Campuses? A Conversation with Cathy Young — An account of one organization's efforts to balance efforts to oppose the excesses of the right with efforts to oppose the excesses of the left. - US Politics
Presidential Pettiness — A look at what happens when you take the politics of defeating enemies and rewarding friends to extremes. - Immigration
Trump is deporting fewer people than Obama. He’s just louder and meaner. — Another example of the way in which the Trump administration seems to focus more on appearances than the substantive success of its policies. - Disinformation
Dan Williams on Misinformation — For a world dominated by deliberately biased sources of information, an exploration of the tough questions that those trying to fix the problem must address. - US Politics
These Younger Democrats Are Sick of Their Party’s Status Quo — An enlightening profile of the new generation of political leaders -- leaders that are now advocating major changes to the Democratic Party.
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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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