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Video: What happened in Virginia?

What Happened In Virginia

From social media to cable news, all the American public sees from our leaders are partisan attacks and hyperbolic rhetoric, but that's not the way it has to be. To prove it, Former Members of Congress (FMC) and the Fulcrum have joined forces to bring you Congress at a Crossroads.

The monthly video series brings together former members of both parties to discuss the structural issues in today's Congress, as well as the hottest political issues. They won't always agree, but they will always treat each other with respect and civility.


This month, our host, FMC CEO Pete Weichlein sat down with Former Reps. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and L.F. Payne (D-VA) to analyze the results of the recent Virginia gubernatorial election, including what Glenn Youngkin did right, how Democrats can regain the ground they lost, and what this means for the 2022 midterm elections.


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The sky clears behind the U.S. Capitol after rainy weather on Sept. 2, 2026, in Washington, D.C.

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We Didn't Get This Angry Because Americans Changed: We Got This Angry Because Washington Did

Something unusual has happened on the opinion pages of The New York Times recently.

Three very different writers have described three seemingly different American problems.

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A full rundown of this week's congressional action: 7 bills headed to the President, a stalled data center bill, and the votes lawmakers wanted on record.

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House Crams in Votes Before Extended Break

The House wasn’t expected to stay in session past this week and, in fact, they left a day early after Rep. Massie (R-KY4) introduced an impeachment resolution against Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Nonetheless, they powered through many more votes than usual. We’ll cover the seven soon-to-be new laws and the bills of interest we highlighted in this week’s preview. As is its usual function, the Senate mostly acted as a break on legislation that had passed the House.

New Laws

These bills have all passed both chambers in identical form, so they next go to the President for signing.

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The United States Capitol building with its white dome against a blue sky

Republicans Are Walking Away From Congress’s Core Duties

The story of this political moment keeps getting written like President Donald Trump is the main character — his impulses, his conflicts, his latest post on Truth Social.

But the more important story is happening one branch over, where a Republican-controlled Congress has spent the last several weeks demonstrating, in real time, what it looks like when a legislature declines to legislate.

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Cardboard ballot box with a voter slip being placed into it by a hand, with a blue and red coloured background.

Getty Images

The Leverage Ethic and the Spirit of Tripartisanship

I made the immodest proposal in my edited interdisciplinary volume Leveraging: A Political, Economic, and Societal Framework that the contemporary analogue to what Max Weber called the "Protestant Work Ethic" in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism was what I called "the Leverage Ethic."

Moreover, I suggested that the Leverage Ethic has more or less replaced what the late Harvard sociologist Daniel Bell called the "Consumer Ethic" in his classic book The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, which he argued more or less replaced the Protestant Work Ethic.

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