Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Follow Us:
Top Stories

Fulcrum Democracy Forum: Maxine Rich

Opinion

Fulcrum Democracy Forum: Maxine Rich

Maxine Rich, Program Manager with Common Ground USA at Search for Common Ground

Maxine Rich is the Program Manager with Common Ground USA at Search for Common Ground.

Rich applies proven methods from international peacebuilding to shore up social cohesion in the United States. She oversees efforts to reduce online polarization and build grassroots resilience to extremism.


I spoke with Maxine on a recent episode of Fulcrum Democracy Forum (FDF). The program engages citizens in evolving government to better meet all people's needs. Consistent with the Fulcrum's mission, FDF strives to share many perspectives to widen our readers' viewpoints.


- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Maxine and I know each other through Common Ground: Journalism, an initiative where students explore strategies and challenges to reporting on-campus conflicts. I am an instructor.

Previously, Maxine led the design of global programs on religious freedom and women's empowerment, researched violent extremism in Morocco, and strengthened peacebuilding partnerships with the US Government, UN, and peer organizations.

She has also served as the Maryland Director of Urban Rural Action and as a dialogue facilitator with Soliya and First Year Connect, a virtual exchange program supporting college students to understand and communicate across differences.

Here are other Change Leaders who I had the opportunity to interview as part of the Fulcrum Democracy Forum series:

    I am the executive editor of the Fulcrum and a board member of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund, the parent organization of The Fulcrum. I am also the publisher of the Latino News Network and an accredited solutions journalism trainer with the Solutions Journalism Network.


    Read More

    A Love Letter to All Americans
    woman with US American flag on her shoulders
    Photo by Josh Johnson on Unsplash

    A Love Letter to All Americans

    My fellow American,

    You may feel weary right now about the condition of our country.

    Keep ReadingShow less
    Carefree Friends Enjoying a Sunny Day in the City Park with Playful Dogs

    An opinion essay exploring viewpoint diversity, academic freedom, political polarization, and why universities should encourage intellectual diversity to strengthen higher education and American democracy.

    QunicaStudio / Getty Images

    Viewpoint Diversity at Work and Play

    I suspected that my answer to the gentle but surprisingly direct query about my politics would have a bearing on my long-term prospects to be welcomed at the dog park. Picking up on my questioner’s left-of-center sensibilities, I’d hoped my confession about being Strom Thurmond’s illegitimate child would not kill my chances to be welcomed back and deny Sadie, my ten-year-old beagle-dachshund pup, the opportunity to frolic with the other people’s left-leaning canines.

    I passed the entrance exam. But I wasn’t surprised to learn that other first-time dog park visitors had not, and quickly concluded that self-deportation was in their best interest.

    Keep ReadingShow less
    The Power of Eating Together

    The Varga family in 1986, when Michael Varga (top row, center) returned to the US after a Foreign Service Assignment.

    Michael Varga

    The Power of Eating Together

    My mother loved to cook. She was most at home in her kitchen. As an Italian, she had grown up savoring a variety of Italian specialties, from lasagna to veal scaloppini to tiramisu. Our family was spoiled by always enjoying flavorful meals together. My father, of Hungarian descent, was a meat-and-potatoes man, but he loved that his wife learned to make goulash for him. Each night, my dad would arrive home from work just before 5 o’clock. He would have a whiskey sour and read the afternoon newspaper (The Philadelphia Bulletin) in his recliner, while we kids finished up our homework or were outside playing catch or “run the bases” with the neighbors’ children. And promptly at 5:30, my mom would ring a bell from the front stoop of our house. We, kids, filed inside to wash our hands and take our places at the kitchen table to break bread together.

    Since my tongue cancer diagnosis in 2020 and the subsequent radiation treatments that have taken away my ability to eat solid food or taste anything, I spend a lot of time remembering how powerful food can be in bringing people together. Being a “companion” to someone means, etymologically (from Latin), sharing bread together.

    Keep ReadingShow less
    Jonah Goldberg: The right and left need to control the radicals in their own parties

    From left, congressional candidate Claire Valdez, congressional candidate Brad Lander, Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier raise their hands during a Get Out the Vote rally at King's Theater on June 18, 2026, in New York.

    (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images/TNS)

    Jonah Goldberg: The right and left need to control the radicals in their own parties

    It’s starting to sound like we’re in the middle of the Spanish Civil War.

    For those of you who forgot, the Spanish Civil War was the great prequel to World War II, in which the combatants were proxies for the Communists and the Fascists. Stalin’s Soviet Union supported the former, Hitler’s Germany aided the latter.

    Keep ReadingShow less