Newsletter #411 — December 21, 2025

by Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess

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Highlighted Links

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

• US Politics
  Why America Is a ‘Creedal Nation’ — A thought-provoking exploration of the set of beliefs that differentiates the United States from most other nations.
• Developing a Unifying Vision
  It’s Time for a New Left — As the left looks at rising populist rebellions around the world and its inability to maintain the public support needed to implement its agenda, thoughts about how to do better.
• Civic Education
  The New Must-Have College Admissions Skill: Tolerating Other Viewpoints — Hopeful news that universities are actually taking steps to remedy their past failure to give civic skill building the attention that it deserves.
• Rule of Law
  Actually, the Supreme Court Has a Plan — An especially good defense of the legal philosophy that the Supreme Court is pursuing. While you may disagree, it is much more reasonable and defensible that many on the left think.
• Class Inequity
  Freedom Amplifies Differences — An exploration of an obvious but seldom recognized fact -- giving people the freedom to live life as they choose leads to substantial differences in the lives that result (i.e. inequality).
• Hate Mongering
  They need to make you hate some group — An article asking an important question, to what extent is identity group politics responsible for the rise of right-wing populist movements?

Reader Suggested Links

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

• Family / Gender / LBGTQ+
  Give Thanks to Your Husband — Welcome news that more people are discovering the value of long-term, stable, loving relationships (and disturbing news that that was ever questioned).
• Psychological Complexity
  Pay Attention to How You Pay Attention — In the context of social media algorithms and human psychology, an essay that asks us to think about how we decide what to think about.
• Peacebuilding
  How to use AI in peace making and negotiations — Discover how AI aids negotiators by filtering complex data, simulating scenarios, and improving cross-cultural communication, all while retaining the essential human elements of empathy and connection.
• Developing a Unifying Vision
  Things Worth Remembering: The Greatest Sentence Ever Written — A retrospective look at origins of one of democracy's biggest ideas -- the notion that all men (and women) are created equal.
• Civil Society
  From Blessed Unrest to a Civic Operating System — From Reboot America, an overview of their strategy for building the connective tissue needed to coordinate a large-scale social movement focused on building a stronger democracy.

• Israel / Hamas War
  The Critical Difference Between Islamophobia and Antisemitism — Amid continuing controversy over the war in Gaza, a thought-provoking essay exploring the way we think about both Jews and Muslims.

   

Colleague Activities

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

• Psychological Complexity
  A Surprising Kind of Polarization We Don’t Talk About — A big part of polarization isn’t about what we believe -- it’s about what we believe that deserves our attention.
• Constructive Communication
  The Power of Curiosity This Holiday Season — Learn how simple questions can spark meaningful conversations and help bridge divides at the holiday table. From the Dignity Index.
• Developing a Unifying Vision
  We can rebuild patriotism from the ground up by harnessing the principles of universalism. — As we approach the holiday season, Jason Mangone reflects on Oliver Wendell Holmes’ Memorial Day speech with an argument that patriotic conviction can still be cultivated through family ritual, gratitude, and local community engagement.
• Rule of Law
  The antidote to lawlessness is the law — Instead of waiting idly for the courts or Congress to stop anti-legalism in its tracks, we must all take up the rights, freedoms, and principles enshrined in the Constitution — and use them to protect and strengthen the rule of law.
• Civil Society
  How to Rethink Regulation with Prosocial Design — A practical new guide equips regulators and civil society to shape healthier digital spaces through a focus on design and user experiences.
• Developing a Unifying Vision
  Meet the Grantees Building a Stronger Pluralism Ecosystem — A listing of the new grants from the New Pluralists focused on three themes: Forging Stronger and More Coherent Measurement, improving Communications Capacity, and moving from Research to Actionable Insight.
• Civil Society
  Platforms That Unite Instead of Divide — Project Liberty Highlights Prosocial Tech -- A summary of Project Liberty's longer report on the same topic.
• Saving Democracy
  How to end the forever redistricting wars — Not all electoral systems are equally prone to gerrymandering. The problem is inherent in the system of one-seat districts.
• Civil Society
  Normsy — Normsy is an AI-enhanced initiative designed to counteract toxic polarization by injecting prosocial, constructive engagement into online spaces -- without restricting free speech. Developed by the Civic Health Project.
• Civil Society
  The South Carolina Forum. — In South Carolina, New Hampshire, and Nevada, the Civic Health Project and partners are launching groundbreaking deliberative programs that convert citizens' collective intelligence into smarter legislative outcomes with the help of AI.
• Civil Society
  A Framework for Digital Civic Infrastructure — Creating a healthy digital civic infrastructure ecosystem means not just deploying technology for the sake of efficiency, but thoughtfully designing tools built to enhance democratic engagement from connection to action.
• Disinformation
  You’re Being Influenced by Bots More Than You Think — These days, opening a social media app feels less like joining a conversation and more like stepping into a room full of masked figures. Some masks hide real humans. Others hide much worse.
• Superpower Conflict
  Taiwan’s Democracy Defense Playbook — China constantly threatens Taiwan, yet, Taiwan’s democracy is thriving. Not despite these threats, but because they’ve built something remarkable: a whole-of-society defense system run by citizens, not soldiers.
• Race / Anti-Racism
  Mainstreaming Social Cohesion — This publication explores how Catholic Relief Services embeds social cohesion and justice across its programming to drive deeper, broader, and more sustainable change.

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.)

• Developing a Unifying Vision
  After Liberalism — More food for thought as we try to imagine a future that gets beyond the many shortcomings of today's dominant political philosophies.
• Israel / Hamas War
  The Anti-Israel Industrial Complex — From an Israeli perspective, an illuminating account of the complex and highly sophisticated ways in which Hamas and its allies are attempting to shape global opinion. This is what 21st-century propaganda looks like.
• Media Reform
  A ‘great unmasking’ on X is arming Americans with digital borders — More on what we are learning about the way in which social media personalities mislead us about who they are, where they're from, and their sources of expertise.
• Family / Gender / LBGTQ+
  The Left’s Family Problem: Marriage and Kids Cratering Among Liberal Young Adults — An informative article about the deterioration of one of our most important and fundamental social units -- the family. (This deterioration is even more prominent on the left.)
• Psychological Complexity
  Six-Chart Sunday (#100) – How to Navigate an Age of Disruption — For these turbulent times, thoughts about six things that we can all do to protect ourselves and our communities.
• Persuasion
  Let's Not Bring Back The Gatekeepers — An exploration of two options that liberals can use to address critics -- persuade them that they are wrong or suppress their ability to criticize.
• Constructive Communication
  How to Approach Even the Hardest Family Discussions — From the Atlantic, links to articles that try to help us think through politically difficult family conversations.
• Civil Society
  Democracy Is in Trouble. This Region Is Turning to Its People. — Another "if it is being done, it must be possible" story. This one looks at Belgium's efforts to give citizens a meaningful role in shaping policies.
• Hate Mongering
  Rage Bait Is a Brilliant Word of the Year — It's reassuring to note that those engaged in hatemongering have a new word to help them more fully describe their activities, "rage bait."
• US Politics
  ‘The $64,000 Question Is What Happens When He Is Gone’ — An informative overview of what people think about the various efforts now underway to continue Trump's political movement after he leaves office.
• Saving Democracy
  Lawfare is a downward spiral. Here’s an escape hatch. — Concrete proposals for reversing the rising tide of lawfare politics on both the left and the right.
• Peacebuilding
  ‘Sudan Is a Good Place to Wage Peace’ — Amid the horrors of the ongoing war in Sudan, a hopeful article about what peacebuilders have been able to do in the past and might be able to do in the future.
• Trust / Trust Earning
  Thinking Differently About Trust in Government — Thought-provoking reflections on the collapse of trust in government -- reflections that take a longer term view and highlight a different way of thinking about the problem.
• Class Inequity
  Even meritocratic systems aren’t fair — A realistic critique of the notion that the meritocracy, because of their academic accomplishments, are entitled to govern.
• Saving Democracy
  Amid today’s unpalatable politics, here’s a public career worth savoring — Reassuring news that the United States still has governors who are executing the responsibilities of their office in ways that demonstrate that democracy really does work.
• Climate / Environment / Health
  America desperately needs new health care ideas. Here are five. — An example of the constructive way to respond to social problems -- abandon cynicism and pursue genuine problem-solving.
• Developing a Unifying Vision
  Why I'm not a centrist — An interesting comparison of liberalism as a political philosophy and centrism as a political tactic.
• Artificial Intelligence
  I love AI. Why doesn't everyone? — From the Noah Smith's excellent Substack newsletter, Noahpinion, arguments in favor of AI worth considering.
• Race / Anti-Racism
  No, You Are Not on Indigenous Land — Thought-provoking reflections on a complex cluster of issues surrounding "land acknowledgments," ownership, and private property.

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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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