Anderson edited "Leveraging: A Political, Economic and Societal Framework" (Springer, 2014), has taught at five universities and ran for the Democratic nomination for a Maryland congressional seat in 2016.
The British Romantic poet John Keats remarked in one of his famous letters – letters that the British literary critic F.R. Leavis said were as important as his poems – that the world is "a vale of soul-making." He was responding to the traditional Christian view that the suffering in the world made life a "vale of tears," as in a valley of tears. The vale of tears led to an afterlife of eternal happiness, but Keats believed that the suffering on Earth needed to have meaning here – namely the building of a soul.
Life's inescapable suffering, according to Keats, could be used to build a soul, one capable of self-understanding as well as understanding others. Life requires understanding the harshness of reality, and the meaning of life turns on whether you can grow from the suffering.
Keats articulated this view of life when he was 23. When he was 8 he lost his father, who was stomped by a horse after falling off. Keats lost his mother, who had tuberculosis, when he was 14. He witnessed intense suffering when he studied to become a doctor. At age 22, he took care of his younger brother Tom, who died of tuberculosis. Keats himself died of tuberculosis when he was 25.
Keats' concept of life as a vale of soul-making can also be applied to a society.
The life of a democratic society like the United States passes through many stages on its quest to become a more perfect union. Those stages are marked by innovation, scientific and technological developments, and moral progress as much as by violence, exploitation, lynchings, war, and injustice.
Historians speak about periods of America's life, including the founding period, the Civil War, the Gilded Age, the Progressive Era, World War I, the New Deal age, the Civil Rights era, the Cold War and the Reagan Revolution. Each of these periods is certainly marked by political, economic and social changes.
Yet the soul of the country is something more than the changing nature of the country's politics, economy and culture. Moreover, the soul of a nation is more complex than the soul of a person, because nations have groups in conflict with each other and may lack a sense of national identity and purpose.
What is missing in America today is not only a shared sense of national identity and purpose but a shared assumption that we need to have a shared sense of national identity and purpose.
Many Washington insiders may talk about this need, but the majority of Americans do not. Instead they are voting for politicians who support the policies that matter to them – whether it concerns abortion, guns, health care, immigration, child care or the environment – or just living their lives indifferent to politics or believing that both parties ignore them.
We have reached a point in the evolution of our national soul where we need to rethink the story of who we are.
The Keats theme of suffering and meaning can help. The suffering our citizens have endured has frequently led to profound changes in our political and economic institutions.
The story, however, cannot be focused on freedom, because this will turn into an intellectual hymn to a thin form of capitalism and very general affirmation of the Bill of Rights. Nor can we just list freedom, equality, toleration and justice because that will result in a smorgasbord of democratic ideals that is at once inspiring and not identifiable as distinctly American.
Seeking the American Dream is worn out.
Indeed, we need to rise above July Fourth orations and get to a concept that will unite Americans across the political spectrum and those who have checked out of politics altogether.
The Keatsian suffering theme can speak to radicals today who want to root out systemic racism, sexism and all forms of oppression.
The Keatsian suffering theme can also speak to mainstream liberals who celebrate the victories for women (getting the right to vote in 1920), for African-Americans (with Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964), and memes of the LGBTQ community (who won rights in the last decade).
Finally, the Keatsian suffering theme can speak to conservatives who celebrate with pride and patriotism the passion and moral drive of the Founding Fathers and the men who fought in the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War.
The American soul will not take no for an answer.
It is born of suffering, it fights injustice and it never gives up, even though at any given time the society is divided between those who believe justice reigns and those who believe injustice prevails.
In the months leading up to the midterm elections, both parties and all candidates should explain to the American people what it means to be an American and why failing is no reason to stop trying to make our country better and to make peace in the world.
Ben Droz
Ben Droz
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Pinnacle Bank Expo Center on the Nebraska State Fairgrounds on October 05, 2026 in Grand Island, Nebraska.
The President Invited Iran to Bomb My Home
I was driving home to San Diego from Los Angeles on Monday night when I heard that the President of the United States had offered both cities up to Iran as bomb targets. At a rally in Nebraska, defending his war, Trump told the crowd, “let [Iran] take out Los Angeles, let ‘em take out San Diego.” It was, he said, “a very small price to pay.”
I was coming from a Bernie Sanders rally for Proposition 40, the one-time tax on California billionaires that would send 90% of its revenue to healthcare. We desperately need it to pass because, in order to give tax breaks to billionaires, Trump signed a law that will strip health coverage from 10 million Americans; this tax will make sure we can still cover Californians. Call me crazy, but I think taxing billionaires one time so we can make sure kids in California get to see a doctor is a very small price to pay. I also think that even if Trump were joking, it is indefensible to make jokes about the potential destruction of so many lives. Human life is never a small price to pay. Human life is priceless.
Plus, the reality is: here in San Diego, we’re already paying the price for Trump’s actions, and it’s not small at all. He has gutted FEMA, tried to kill climate resiliency programs, and destroyed public health standards, while his signature law is set to cut off health insurance and food support for hundreds of thousands of San Diegans. Like plenty of American cities, San Diego is already busy finding local solutions to respond to the problems this president has recklessly created.
Not to mention, at least 19 American service members have been killed in this war already. Human rights monitors have documented more than 3,600 dead in Iran by April alone. Here at home, gas is sitting just pennies below its all-time record. Taxpayers have already spent more than $45 billion on the war, while Trump’s oil and gas portfolio has grown by roughly $15.5 million this year alone. Of course anything is a “small price” to someone paying free.99 for this war, and profiting from it. Meanwhile, We the People are paying twice: first for the war, and then for the consequences of that war. But now he wants San Diego to pay a third time, flippantly offering us up to Iran.
It is worth noticing which cities he thought to name. Were San Diego and Los Angeles strategically chosen to signify something to his audience, or were they simply the first cities that came to mind as expendable places? Either way, the effect is to normalize—-and to gauge a crowd’s reaction to–the idea of massive violence in major California cities, suitable targets because of their perceived liberal lean. So what if Iran needs to bomb a little bit of America before the war can be over? Who cares, says Trump, if they target Los Angeles and San Diego?
By the way, why didn’t he offer up San Francisco, the free-love hippie-town MAGA loves to hate (and also my birthplace)? Could it be because that’s where the tech titans live? The same ones who joined Trump for Xi Jinping’s state dinner, a guest list worth a combined $2.4 trillion?
San Diego may have fewer billionaires, but it is home to more than 115,000 active-duty service members and 230,000 veterans. One in six active-duty sailors–in the entire Navy–is stationed here. So is one in four Marines. You cannot throw a rock in this county without hitting a military family: brats and spouses and veterans are among us. I got out of the Navy last year after ten years, and eight of those were here in San Diego. When Trump says “let ‘em take out San Diego,” he’s talking about the backbone of the United States military. He’s also talking about the people fighting his war.
San Diego has not been watching this war from the sidelines. Today, the USS Abraham Lincoln returns to North Island after an almost yearlong deployment to the Middle East that featured food shortages, broken toilets, and mold in the showers after 286 days at sea without a single port call. Eight sailors in the Lincoln’s strike group attempted suicide, but in August, when a reporter asked whether the deployment had gone on too long, Trump said “not nearly long enough.” Now he has told a crowd in Nebraska that we should let Iran take out the city those sailors call home. These are sociopathic sentiments.
Last week at Quantico, Pete Hegseth closed his address to the force by telling them, “President Trump has your back and so do I.” To the contrary, President Trump has put one of the biggest military towns in the country forward as a target for our adversaries. With friends like these, the “domestic” in “against all enemies, foreign and domestic” starts to sound a lot less hypothetical.
San Diego is home to Naval Air Station North Island, Naval Base San Diego, Naval Amphibious Base Coronado, the Point Loma submarine base, Camp Pendleton, and Miramar (and I have been permanently stationed at or trained at all of them). If Iran bombed San Diego and Los Angeles, aside from the devastating loss of life, it would cripple an immense share of our national security readiness.
And for what, exactly? Trump says the war is “essentially almost over with.” This is the same man who claimed in June 2025 that Iran’s nuclear program had been “obliterated,” then launched a war over it anyway on February 28. More than seven months later, he wants us to believe two things at once: that we’ve basically won, and that we might need to sacrifice an American city or two to finish winning. If the war is almost over, why does anybody need to take out San Diego?
I wonder if Trump’s endorsed candidate for California’s 48th District here in San Diego County will respond to these remarks. He recently said “no pain, no gain,” when referring to the gas prices San Diegans are paying. Jim Desmond, would you apply that same mindset if we were bombed? Or do you have the moral courage to stand up for the people you’re running to represent?
Last November, six Democratic members of Congress, all veterans, including Senator Mark Kelly, recorded a video reminding troops of their duty to disobey unlawful orders, restating the law that says so. Trump called it “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH,” and then his Justice Department went looking for an indictment, which a grand jury refused. The president treated reading the law out loud to the troops as a capital offense, but then he himself invited a foreign enemy to destroy two American cities, possibly as a punchline. Is anyone calling the latter sedition? Who is demanding accountability?
Calling our lives a small price to pay affirms a moral bankruptcy, as well as an obvious dereliction of duty to the office he holds. While we can’t impeach him or invoke the 25th Amendment ourselves, we must stop being so quiet about what we’re paying already. We can make our voices heard by calling our representatives, writing op-eds, knocking doors, phone banking, and voting in defiance of the man who threatens the safety of our city. Ballots are already arriving in mailboxes. Vote, and vote yes on 40 (and no on 41 and 42).
Trump has been harming our cities for a while, but now he is inviting our military adversaries to join him in the harm. If we have any self-respect as Americans, we must not tolerate our leaders disregarding the dignity of lives in this way. We must fight for our home.
Julie Roland was a Naval Officer for ten years, deploying to both the South China Sea and the Persian Gulf as a helicopter pilot before separating in June 2025 as a Lieutenant Commander. She has a law degree from the University of San Diego, a Master of Laws from Columbia University, and is a member of the Truman National Security Project.