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The Knicks and the Practice of Us

Jalen Brunson #11 of the New York Knicks celebrates with the Larry O'Brien Championship Trophy during the New York Knicks Championship ticker tape parade and victory rally celebrating winning the 2026 NBA Finals on June 18, 2026 in New York City.

(Photo by Angelina Katsanis/Getty Images)

The Knicks and the Practice of Us

I didn’t grow up anywhere near Madison Square Garden. My childhood unfolded in the Midwest, far from New York’s tangled boroughs and yellow cabs. My father brought the city with him, tucked in the vowels of his accent and the teams he rooted for. He was a Jersey boy at first. Then, a reluctant Midwesterner. Geography, though, never truly loosened its grip. In our house, sports allegiance wasn’t a choice. It was inherited—an expectation passed like a family recipe. Or a story retold until it blurs into fact.

For my father, and then for me, the Knicks were never just a team. They were a test of endurance. Before I could distinguish a pick-and-roll from a triangle offense, I understood Knicks loyalty: you waited. You hoped in public, persisted when heartbreak was routine. Knicks fandom was boot camp for disappointment. The main skill was getting up after being knocked down.

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Reclaiming Patriotism: Between Nationalism and Pessimism

People gather over a giant Declaration of Independence

Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images.

Reclaiming Patriotism: Between Nationalism and Pessimism

As America approaches the 250th anniversary of its independence, I am more in the mood to protest than to celebrate. Does that make me unpatriotic? The answer depends on how we understand “patriotism.” For a nation that is founded in revolution, let’s affirm a deeper and more profound love of country, a civic patriotism celebrative of our larger ideals including pluralism, dissent, and a commitment to social change.

Two Types of Patriotism

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A New Path to Depolarization: Media That Brings Us Together
Political polarization
Polarization and the politics of love

A New Path to Depolarization: Media That Brings Us Together

As we face ever-growing partisan polarization in American society, the need for large-scale action becomes increasingly urgent. As James Coan and I have written about in the Fulcrum during my time at More Like US, there are approaches grounded in a significant body of social psychological research that can help address this rapidly growing problem, namely different variations of social contact theory, especially vicarious contact. Until recently, much of the research and thus much of the basis for our articles has been focused on applying social contact theory to other problems facing society: prejudice against members of the LGBTQ community, individuals with autism, and immigrant schoolchildren, among other examples.

It was therefore exciting when last fall I saw the publication of an article in Political Science Research and Methods titled "Content That's as Good as Contact?: Vicarious Intergroup Contact and the Promise of Depolarization at Scale." The study, conducted in 2022 in conjunction with YouGov, finally attempted to measure the effectiveness of indirect contact as a path to depolarization, primarily through the vicarious experience of productive political conversation. Encompassing over 2,000 participants gathered from a nationally representative sample recruited by YouGov’s online panel, the study looked to test affective polarization, measured attitudinally, and interest and investment in depolarization, measured behaviorally. To this end, the study tested multiple media interventions, namely a 50-minute Braver Angels documentary featuring a “Red-Blue” depolarization workshop; a 50-minute placebo nature documentary about wildebeest migration; a 5-minute version of the Braver Angels documentary; a second 5-minute version that emphasized partisan misperception correction; and a pure control group, with no treatment.

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How Red and Blue America Can Stay Together by Pulling Apart

United States Marine Corps Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning II STOVL stealth multirole fighters belonging to the VMFA-121 "Green Knights" taxiing at the MCAS Iwakuni in Yamaguchi, Japan, on March 23, 2017.

(viper-zero / Getty Images)

How Red and Blue America Can Stay Together by Pulling Apart

In earlier essays, I argued that America’s political division has grown so deep that a peaceful “American Union” of two sovereign nations — one broadly red, one broadly blue — is worth considering. I also argued that relocation fears are overstated, that cooperation could increase economic prosperity, and that separation could help heal the lingering wounds of the Civil War.

But how would this all actually work? What happens to the national debt? Who gets the military bases, federal lands, and nuclear weapons? Will Social Security be protected? Could two nations share the dollar, defend themselves together, and resolve their disagreements?

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