Stein is an organizational and political strategist who has worked with dozens of for-profit, not-for-profit and political and public sector organizations over the past 50 years. He currently serves as a researcher/writer, consultant and champion of the work of cross-partisan cultural and political organizations and initiatives. This is the first in Stein's new monthly column, Cross-Partisan Visions.
The dawn of the third decade of the 21st century has ushered in an age of hyperanxiety.
On every continent, and in virtually every country, conventional wisdoms are being shredded. Changed circumstances and altered conditions are the predominant constants. Clarity about the future is obfuscated in the fog of cultural, economic and political upheaval. Certainty is primarily the refuge of extremists across the cultural and political spectrum.
This toxic stew threatens personal mental health, social and political cohesion, security, justice and prosperity everywhere, and the very foundations of civilization.
Our hyperanxiety is being fed by powerful forces that have been unleashed by negligence, poor stewardship of our natural world, ineffective governance, wanton consumerism and greed. These forces include, but are not limited to, population-growth-based natural resource depletion; climate-induced fires, floods and storms; mass human migrations; species extinctions; pandemics; escalating economic inequality; civil and regional wars; racial reckonings; and the increasing avalanche of disinformation and conspiracy theories being manufactured and spread by hyperpartisan organs of mass communication and social media.
There are no glib answers, quick fixes or short cuts back to truth, trust, reason and civility. Whatever the future holds, and however traumatic and relentless the age of hyperanxiety ultimately becomes, we have no choice but to do the painstakingly difficult work of discovering new faith in ourselves, one another and our institutions.
And the diligence and resilience we are called now to muster can only be animated, and therefore can only emanate, from a new global consciousness and crystalline clarity about our collective commitment to meaningful changes that improve human life and sustain our humanity.
This is the hope and promise of "Cross-Partisan Visions." In the months and years ahead, we will explore how people from across traditional divides can imagine, and therefore collaboratively implement, strategies to realize their common interests and shared destinies. In turn, this will require a deep commitment to building a new values-based constituency with a collective vision and a compelling new cultural and political voice.
Such a constituency will be realized when, initially, hundreds of thousands and, ultimately, millions of people pledge allegiance to a "Cross-Partisan Creed":
To be avid champions and tireless practitioners of constructive dialogue, deliberation and problem-solving with diverse people across cultural, racial, ethnic, political and gender divides in order to collectively perfect our union by optimizing liberty, justice and opportunity for all.
Fidelity in these times to this Cross-Partisan Creed will advance a modern "Cross-Partisan Ethos" which:
- Consciously considers a range of perspectives, philosophical and ideological differences that respect conservative, moderate and progressive principles.
- Enthusiastically fosters the curiosity, passionate exploration, and creative inquiry necessary to discover our commonalities in spite of our traditional divides.
- Believes anew in the ageless human, religious and philosophical values of truth, trust, reason and civility.
- Respects the dignity of people across traditional cultural, economic, political, racial and gender divides in order to optimize collaboration on evidence-based solutions to human, community, national and global problems.
- Accepts the difficult fact that many, perhaps most, 21st century exigencies and policy complexities cannot be resolved by anachronistic 20th century-contrived ideologies and bygone realities.
- Finds the will and honors the fact that we — Republicans, Democrats and independents — need one another to effectively address, and accept our fair share of responsibility for ameliorating, the most vexing problems of our times.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivers a keynote speech at the 62nd Munich Security Conference on Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026, in Munich, Germany.
Marco Rubio is the only adult left in the room
Finally free from the demands of being chief archivist of the United States, secretary of state, national security adviser and unofficial viceroy of Venezuela, Marco Rubio made his way to the Munich Security Conference last weekend to deliver a major address.
I shouldn’t make fun. Rubio, unlike so many major figures in this administration, is a bona fide serious person. Indeed, that’s why President Trump keeps piling responsibilities on him. Rubio knows what he’s talking about and cares about policy. He is hardly a free agent; Trump is still president after all. But in an administration full of people willing to act like social media trolls, Rubio stands out for being serious. And I welcome that.
But just because Rubio made a serious argument, that doesn’t mean it was wholly persuasive. Part of his goal was to repair some of the damage done by his boss, who not long ago threatened to blow up the North Atlantic alliance by snatching Greenland away from Denmark. Rubio’s conciliatory language was welcome, but it hardly set things right.
Whether it was his intent or not, Rubio had more success in offering a contrast with Vice President JD Vance, who used the Munich conference last year as a platform to insult allies and provide fan service to his followers on X. Rubio’s speech was the one Vance should have given, if the goal was to offer a serious argument about Trump’s “vision” for the Western alliance. I put “vision” in scare quotes because it’s unclear to me that Trump actually has one, but the broader MAGA crowd is desperate to construct a coherent theory of their case.
So what’s that case? That Western Civilization is a real thing, America is not only part of it but also its leader, and it will do the hard things required to fix it.
In Rubio’s story, America and Europe embraced policies in the 1990s that amounted to the “managed decline” of the West. European governments were free riders on America’s military might and allowed their defense capabilities to atrophy as they funded bloated welfare states and inefficient regulatory regimes. Free trade, mass migration and an infatuation with “the rules-based global order” eroded national sovereignty, undermined the “cohesion of our societies” and fueled the “de-industrialization” of our economies. The remedy for these things? Reversing course on those policies and embracing the hard reality that strength and power drive events on the global stage.
“The fundamental question we must answer at the outset is what exactly are we defending,” Rubio said, “because armies do not fight for abstractions. Armies fight for a people; armies fight for a nation. Armies fight for a way of life.”
I agree with some of this — to a point. And, honestly, given how refreshing it is to hear a grown-up argument from this administration, it feels churlish to quibble.
But, for starters, the simple fact is that Western Civilization is an abstraction, and so are nations and peoples. And that’s fine. Abstractions — like love, patriotism, moral principles, justice — are really important. Our “way of life” is largely defined and understood through abstractions: freedom, the American dream, democracy, etc. What is the “Great” in Make America Great Again, if not an abstraction?
This is important because the administration’s defenders ridicule or dismiss any principled objection critics raise as fastidious gitchy-goo eggheadery. Trump tramples the rule of law, pardons cronies, tries to steal an election and violates free market principles willy-nilly. And if you complain, it’s because you’re a goody-goody fool.
As White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said not long ago, “we live in a world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world that have existed since the beginning of time.” Rubio said it better, but it’s the same idea.
There are other problems with Rubio’s story. At the start of the 1990s, the EU’s economy was 9% bigger than ours. In 2025 we were nearly twice as rich as Europe. If Europe was “ripping us off,” they have a funny way of showing it. America hasn’t “deindustrialized.” The manufacturing sector has grown during all of this decline, though not as much as the service sector, where we are a behemoth. We have shed manufacturing jobs, but that has more to do with automation than immigration. Moreover, the trends Rubio describes are not unique to America. Manufacturing tends to shrink as countries get richer.
That’s an important point because Rubio, like his boss, blames all of our economic problems on bad politicians and pretends that good politicians can fix them through sheer force of will.
I think Rubio is wrong, but I salute him for making his case seriously.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.