Newsletter #494 — October 1, 2026

by Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess

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Highlighted Links

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

• Superpower Conflict
  America Has Forfeited Its Greatest Strength — Osama bin Laden wanted to eradicate faith in American power. Twenty-five years later, his dream is on the verge of coming true.
• Corruption
  MAGA Is Making the World Safe for Corruption — Far-right ideologues have transformed American foreign policy into a tool of private gain and antidemocratic reaction.
• Artificial Intelligence
  Swarms of AI Committing Crime For Money — A more sophisticated and thoughtful analysis of the ways in which AI systems might go rogue -- an analysis that highlights what might happen when the conflicting mandates of these systems interact.
• Superpower Conflict
  The American Age Is Over — Another perspective on the staggering geopolitical changes now underway -- changes that might ultimately be seen as consequential as the end of the Cold War.
• Developing a Unifying Vision
  Without This Concept, Liberalism Is Nothing — The latest article from the Liberal Virtues and Values series -- an exploration of why liberalism is an ideology worth believing in and defending on its own terms.
• Education
  Are Phone-Free Schools Working? — From "After Babel," John Haidt's Substack looking at the complex issues surrounding young people, smartphones, and schools, an update on how things are going.
• US Politics
  Opinion | This Is Why So Many Voters Hate Both Parties — Most voters have more complex views than their partisan labels suggest -- views that deviate widely from partisan orthodoxies.
• Immigration
  Liberalism needs a new philosophy of immigration — A thoughtful effort to listen to immigration's critics, think through the complex issues surrounding the subject, and develop a more broadly attractive approach.
• Social / Economic Complexity
  How red tape replaced common sense — From The Washington Post's weekly newsletter, "Red Tape," more reflections on the ways in which the bureaucracy prevents things that need doing from getting done.
• Authoritarianism
  How To Talk to a Tyrant — A thought-provoking historical analyses of strategies for dealing with leaders like President Trump -- Leaders who care little about rationality or the public interest.
• Artificial Intelligence
  The AI-as-Normal-Technology view of loss-of-control incidents — For those looking beyond the headlines, an in-depth and extensive analysis of complex array of issues surrounding the controllability of AI technology.
• Superpower Conflict
  The U.S. Is Burning Through Its Supply of Interceptors to Counter Iran’s Attacks — An article about the singular fact that is leading to the end of the era of U.S. Military dominance -- the fact that unsophisticated military powers can build capable drones faster than the U.S. can build interceptors to shoot them down.
• Social / Economic Complexity
  The Beginning of the End of History — From Francis Fukuyama, the story surrounding his famous, and often misunderstood, essay on "The End of History" (and the history that didn't end).
• Israel, Hamas, Iran, and Related Wars
  The Other War on Terror — From Foreign Affairs: an enlightening retrospective on the complex ways in which 9/11 and its aftermath have transformed U.S. Democracy.

Colleague Activities

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

• Saving Democracy
  A Republic, If You Can Keep It — The Test of America’s Democratic Guardrails — A Republic survives, Ben Franklin said, not simply because a Constitution exists, but because each generation chooses to protect the principles that make self-government possible.
• Theories of Change
  From Systems Thinking to Daily Practice: How Network Leaders Turn Complexity into Action — Learn how network leaders bridge the gap between systems thinking and daily practice to turn complex challenges into actionable collaborative change.
• Theories of Change
  Heart vs. Head: How to Actually Get Things Done in a Diverse Democracy - In Reality podcast — Eric Schurenberg is joined by the Civity founders Malka Kopell and Palma Strand.
• Constructive Communication
  The One Thing You Can Do Right Now to Heal a Divided Country - Builders — Both sides imagine the other as twice as extreme as they really are. Here's the one demanding, unglamorous habit that can actually close the gap: curiosity.
• Saving Democracy
  A Constitutional Wreck(on)ing — The first of a five-part series outlining 15 Ways the Constitution Is Being Tested by the Administration.
• Effective Problem-Solving
  Phase Three Report — The Nevada Forum — From August 28-30, 2026, 49 randomly selected, demographically matched Nevadans met at the Palms Casino Resort and passed six supermajority-backed directives on Nevada's water future.
• Saving Democracy
  The Long Fight to Secure Voting Rights for All Americans — How centuries of exclusion shaped today’s fight for equal voting rights.
• Authoritarianism
  Our Constitution was designed as an antidote to tyranny. 250 years later, the villain is trying to smash the vial. — The Constitution’s strength against tyranny endures, but only if Americans choose to protect it.
• US Politics
  The Real Test of the 2026 Midterms Comes After the Vote — Falling confidence in election fairness means the central test may be whether the losing side accepts the result.
• Constructive Communication
  The 9/11 Town Hall That Helped Rebuild Ground Zero—and Democracy — A personal reflection on 9/11, civic power, and the path to democratic renewal.
• Family / Gender / LBGTQ+
  Pro-Life and Pro-Choice: Bridging the Gap — We have spent decades arguing about abortion policy. We now have an opportunity to step back, look at what actually happened, and ask a more fundamental question: What policies actually reduce the number of abortions?

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.)

• Progressive Left / Socialism
  Populist Republicans and Democratic Socialists Are Starting to Merge — Real world support for the long-standing theory that the extreme left and the extreme right tend to be quite similar.
• Developing a Unifying Vision
  David Brooks on the Key to Flourishing — In the debut episode of The Permanent Questions podcast, David Brooks speaks with the philosopher Meghan Sullivan about perhaps the most important question of them all: How should we live our lives?
• Superpower Conflict
  Building ‘Trump Class’ Battleships Will Be a Big, Expensive Mistake — The story about what may be the biggest monument to Trump's vanity -- the building of super expensive battleships that detract from, rather than add to, U.S. defense capabilities.
• Developing a Unifying Vision
  What Is the Good Life? — The philosophy professor Meghan Sullivan doesn’t just want to teach her students about virtue; she wants to make them better human beings.
• US Politics
  Congress May Be Broken Beyond Repair. Lawmakers Told Us How It Happened. — For those trying to understand how things could possibly have gotten this bad, a lengthy article in which members of Congress offer their first hand assessments of what went wrong.
• Israel, Hamas, Iran, and Related Wars
  The Real End of the Arab–Israeli Conflict? — With respect to the relationship between Syria and Israel, another look at the region's staggering complexities and an explanation why simplistic analyses and prescriptions make little sense.
• Israel, Hamas, Iran, and Related Wars
  Why Islam Cannot Be Reformed—And Why It Threatens Civilization — Reflections on a passionate debate about whether Islam lies at the root of the dysfunction in Islamic societies and whether it can be reformed -- and an important reminder that culture matters.
• US Politics
  The Property-Tax Revolution — A report on many of the tax measures on the ballot in the United States' upcoming elections and what happens when people want more from government than they're willing to pay for.
• Civil Society
  Why I’m a Progressive — An introspective essay on the responsibilities associated with being a public intellectual -- someone who tries to think through how society might best solve its various problems.
• Race / Anti-Racism
  How Do You Talk a Klansman out of the Klan? Ask Daryl Davis. — The famed blues musician has convinced over 200 Klan members to quit -- not by arguing with them, but by having dinner with them and asking one simple question: Why do you hate me?
• Social / Economic Complexity
  Humans are flourishing more than ever. Thank this engine of advancement. — For those worried about the many things that are going wrong, this article asks us to recognize and preserve the things about modern society that are phenomenally successful.
• Interstate War
  A Rare Look at the Pentagon’s Drone 'Gauntlet' Competition — A short video highlighting the capabilities of the new drone weapons that the Army is planning to purchase in very large numbers.
• Israel, Hamas, Iran, and Related Wars
  Israel is guilty before the evidence is even heard. — In the wake of the incendiary allegations embodied in the NAZA film, this article presents the other side of the story -- arguments worth considering before deciding what you think.
• Interstate War
  David Petraeus: The race to make Putin’s aggression unaffordable — An important reminder of the stakes we all have in Ukraine's ability to defend itself from Russian aggression.

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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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