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John Adams warned that without virtue, republics collapse. Today, billionaire spending and unchecked wealth test whether America can place the common good above private gain.
John Adams Warned Us: A Republic Without Virtue Cannot Survive
Oct 03, 2025
John Adams understood a truth that feels even sharper today: a republic cannot endure without virtue. Writing to Mercy Otis Warren in April 1776, he warned that “public Virtue cannot exist in a Nation without [private virtue], and public Virtue is the only Foundation of Republics.” For Adams, liberty would not be preserved by clever constitutions alone. It depended on citizens who could restrain their selfish impulses for the sake of the common good.
That insight has lost none of its force. Some people do restrain themselves. They accumulate enough to live well and then turn to service, family, or community. Others never stop. Given the chance, they gather wealth and power without limit. Left unchecked, selfishness concentrates material and social resources in the hands of a few, leaving many behind and eroding the sense of shared citizenship on which democracy depends.
Adams distinguished between subjects and citizens. Subjects were ruled. Citizens participated. But citizenship required more than casting a vote. It demanded habits that sustain a free society: honesty, moderation, service, and fairness. A republic cannot rest on the hope that enough citizens will voluntarily restrain themselves. History shows that when virtue fails, only clear rules—laws that promote fairness and institutions that protect the public good—can prevent private power from overwhelming democracy itself. Without these guardrails, inequality grows unchecked, cynicism deepens, and democracy itself becomes vulnerable to collapse.
That lesson feels urgent in an age when material success is celebrated as the highest good. Wealth today buys more than comfort—it buys political influence and cultural authority. Since Citizens United v. FEC in 2010, billionaire political spending has exploded. In 2024, just 100 families spent $2.6 billion on elections—more than millions of small donors combined. Pharmaceutical companies spend millions to block reforms that would make medicine affordable. Tech companies lobby against rules designed to keep markets fair. Defense contractors protect massive budgets, even for weapons the military no longer wants. The pattern is the same: when selfishness is unconstrained, private wealth bends public institutions toward private ends.
Adams foresaw this danger. In his 1776 letter to Warren, he warned that “the spirit of commerce…is incompatible with that purity of heart, and greatness of soul which is necessary for a happy Republic.” He did not reject commerce. He saw its energy as essential. But he feared what happens when wealth becomes the only measure of worth and when no boundary—internal or external—checks its pursuit.
The problem, then, is not wealth itself. It is selfishness without limits. Private virtue can restrain it, but when virtue fails, public rules must step in. A healthy republic cannot depend on individual moderation alone. It needs laws that channel economic energy toward the common good: rules that protect fair competition, transparency that exposes corruption, and institutions that reward service over greed.
As I explored in “American Whiplash: A Republic in Cycles”, the United States has repeatedly gone through periods of excess followed by correction. The Progressive Era curbed monopolies. The New Deal built protections in the midst of a crisis. The Civil Rights Movement expanded freedom by forcing the nation to honor its promise of equality. In each case, selfishness was constrained by citizens insisting on fairness and leaders willing to act.
The question now is whether we still have the will to repeat that work. A republic cannot survive if selfishness is allowed to rule unchecked. Adams’s warning was plain: liberty itself will wither when wealth is prized over character. Some may grow very rich, but few will remain free. The true test of the republic is whether it can summon both private virtue and public courage to place the common good above private gain.
Edward Saltzberg is the Executive Director of the Security and Sustainability Forum and writes the Stability Brief.
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Gen Z Students Find Common Ground in Tocqueville’s ‘Democracy in America’
Oct 03, 2025
As a college student, I used to think that I could not talk openly about American politics with my peers. Polling indicates that many others on campus feel the same way. Discussing my political beliefs often felt either too divisive or too exhausting. Even when free speech rights are guaranteed to some extent, the idea of publicly expressing opinions can be intimidating due to the harsh scrutiny it can attract. A simple cost-benefit analysis suggested that it was not worth it to engage with my peers about politics.
I learned, however, that it is still possible to have productive conversations about politics when I joined a reading group on Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. The group of students around the seminar table each came from different majors, backgrounds, and viewpoints to read and discuss this timeless book — and it helped me realize that, despite our political divisions, Americans can still come together in conversation about politics.
Before this experience, I did not think we could talk about what it means to be Americans anymore. Divisive conversations about the deeply conflicting visions for America among different people have been loud for all of the political coming-of-age years of my generation, Gen Z. Meanwhile, conversations about what we share—history, rights, freedom—and the principles of the American Founding that might help us move forward have been quiet.
However, I was then invited by a professor at my university to participate in a reading group supported by the Jack Miller Center, and I accepted. Each week, we gathered around a table in a small seminar-style classroom, passing pastries around, to read Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America.
As I reflect on it in retrospect, what stands out to me is the diversity among the group of people who sat around this table. And while there was racial and ethnic diversity, these are not the primary types of diversity that stand out to me. There was another kind of diversity: viewpoint diversity, which has become increasingly prevalent on college campuses.
I recall, at the time, feeling a sense of shock at who was in the room. I lean conservative in my political views, and I was not surprised to see other people whom I suspected or knew to also be conservative-leaning. It would seem to follow, after all, that there is something inherently conservative about taking time to conserve the study of the past. I was surprised, however, to see people in the room that I suspected or knew to be liberal-leaning.
Among this group, one of my peers was elected as a delegate to the 2024 Democratic National Convention. Across the table from her was someone else who went on to work for the Family Research Council, a right-of-center think tank committed to “advancing faith, family, and freedom.” Most of us had divergent views, but we were not divided. Even as interpretations and opinions on Democracy in America varied, we were united in the pursuit of understanding and wisdom. This reading group demonstrated to me that the study of primary sources, which teaches us about the American identity and fosters conversation, is not a practice that pigeonholes us into a single viewpoint or partisan camp. It is a practice that can transcend the superficial divisions of our political life and invite us to consider the first principles of being Americans.
I have some wonderful memories from throughout my life that are centered around bonfires. Conversations with friends, celebrations, and moments when someone got out a guitar and broke out into song all come to mind. While the bonfire was beautiful and served a practical purpose in its own right, the most valuable feature of the bonfire was its ability to bring people together around it, in conversation with each other. This is what reading Tocqueville’s Democracy in America did for me and my peers in this campus reading group. It gave us something to gather around and prompted discussions we would not have otherwise had.
While strikingly relevant, Tocqueville’s Democracy in America—like any good primary source document—is not so entrenched in our present-day issues to prevent us from zooming out and thinking about greater things. By discussing this book together, we explored what America is supposed to be, what it is, and what we might prefer it to be.
Culture has taught Gen Z to be politically active and fight for a better society. Yet, no one ever taught us how to actually do those things productively. I do not believe that my generation wants to be divided or always fighting to prove our vision for America is the better one. I think that we have just lacked a framework through which we can enter into productive conversations about ideas. Gathering to read and discuss a primary source gave us this framework.
It seems more apparent than ever that we are deeply divided as a country. If this bothers you, I encourage you to learn from my experience and consider reading a primary source from the American founding or American history with fellow Americans—those who share your views and those who do not. This practice might just be our path forward.
Lillie Inman is a senior at Samford University and a communications intern for the Jack Miller Center.
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U.S. President Donald Trump answers questions after making an announcement on“ significant medical and scientific findings for America’ s children” in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Sept. 22, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Federal health officials suggested a link between the use of acetaminophen during pregnancy as a risk for autism, although many health...
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MAGA says no to Trump & Kennedy’s junk science
Oct 03, 2025
President Trump stood at the White House podium, addressing a room full of reporters.
“First, effective immediately, the FDA will be notifying physicians that the use of…ah-said-a…well…let’s see how we say that.”
As he struggled again to say “acetaminophen,” and asked someone off camera, “Is that OK?” when he finally managed to get his lips around the word, the moment was a perfect encapsulation of the dumbing down of expertise and the political corruption of science under this administration.
He said that taking acetaminophen, or Tylenol, while pregnant has been associated with a “very increased risk of autism,” a claim pushed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy with little to no basis in scientific fact.
“Taking Tylenol is not good,” Trump declared, as if anyone in their right mind would take medical advice from a guy who suggested injecting disinfectant to treat coronavirus.
Scientists — people who, unlike Trump and Kennedy, have actual expertise in these matters — objected. Dr. Helen Tager-Flusberg, director of the Center for Autism Research Excellence at Boston University called the announcement “appalling” and “a very significant distortion” of what science says about any possible links.
The Coalition of Autism Scientists said: “The data cited do not support the claim that Tylenol causes autism and leucovorin is a cure, and only stoke fear and falsely suggest hope when there is no simple answer.”
And Sura Alwan, a clinical teratologist at the University of British Columbia, said, “The evidence does not support a causal link between acetaminophen or vaccines and autism.”
The absurdity of Trump and Kennedy doling out medical advice, when the former promoted taking anti-malaria medication hydroxychloroquine to ward off COVID-19 — and then contracted COVID-19 himself — and the latter believes chemicals in drinking water can make someone gay or trans, should not be lost on anyone.
Everyone should ignore these crackpot Looney Tunes and trust their doctors and pediatricians, not two politicians cosplaying at science, whose long and sordid history of bad advice could lead to serious injury or death.
And while MAGA-world usually falls in line quickly to defend even Trump’s worst impulses — see Jan. 6, see Russia, see tariffs — this time Tweedledum and Tweedledee aren’t getting quite the support they’re used to. That’s how bad this is.
Less than a day after Trump made his announcement, his own administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Dr. Mehmet Oz, went on MAGA favorite Fox News to walk it back.
“So the message is not, ‘Never take Tylenol,’ ” he said, contradicting Trump’s own words. “It’s, ‘Take Tylenol judiciously.’ Take it by talking with your doctor.”
Also on Fox, the network’s own senior medical analyst Dr. Marc Siegel asked and answered the question pretty definitively. “Does acetaminophen during pregnancy cause autism? People out there need to know there’s absolutely no proof whatsoever that that’s the case.”
In Congress, there’s been some rare pushback, too. Senate Majority Leader John Thune told CNN he was “very concerned” and insisted, “science ought to guide these discussions.”
Sen. Bill Cassidy, a licensed physician, posted on X, “HHS should release the new data that it has to support this claim. The preponderance of evidence shows that this is not the case.”
And Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal blasted Trump and Kennedy’s anti-Tylenol campaign, pointing to lawsuits against the maker of Tylenol and what may be personal interests in those outcomes.
“What’s going on here has less to do with healthcare than with a campaign by the plaintiffs bar,” wrote the Journal’s editorial board. “If a drug company made the unproven claims aired at the White House, the Food and Drug Administration would threaten legal action.”
“So why the sudden alarm, complete with a presidential presser?” it continued. “The Occam’s razor answer is the influence of RFK Jr., who is carrying water for his friends in the plaintiffs bar. A who’s-who of lawsuit shops are pushing the Tylenol-autism link in federal court. The transparent goal is to drum up more claims to drive a bigger damage award or settlement.”
I’m not even sure Trump believes all of the garbage he spewed on Monday. In his inimitable way, he seemed to distance himself from what he was selling, saying, “This is based on what I feel,” and “You know, I’m making these statements from me, I’m not making them from these doctors,” and “I’m not a doctor, but I’m giving my opinion.”
So when asked if it was appropriate for him to tell the public what to do, given it was based on his “feelings,” he answered it was “absolutely appropriate.”
Chef’s kiss.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.
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New Orleans fights a facial recognition ordinance as residents warn of privacy risks, mass surveillance, and threats to immigrant communities.
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On Live Facial Recognition in the City: We Are Not Guinea Pigs, and We Are Not Disposable
Oct 02, 2025
Every day, I ride my bike down my block in Milan, a tight-knit residential neighborhood in central New Orleans. And every day, a surveillance camera follows me down the block.
Despite the rosy rhetoric of pro-surveillance politicians and facial recognition vendors, that camera doesn’t make me safer. In fact, it puts everyone in New Orleans at risk.
On Aug. 21, a live facial recognition ordinance was withdrawn by the New Orleans City Council, after months of community organizations fighting back and loudly opposing this dangerous ordinance. A council member's office confirmed that it was removed, pending edits, suggesting that a new one will be introduced. If this or a similar surveillance ordinance is approved, Louisiana would become the first state in the nation with a city-wide biometric surveillance network capable of tracking hundreds of thousands of residents in real time.
That’s not a step we want to take. Once invasive surveillance technology like that ends up in the hands of the government, there are no guardrails or oversight mechanisms powerful enough to protect our freedom and our privacy from bad actors, corrupt politicians, hackers, and anyone who doesn’t have our best interest at heart.
Expanding real-time facial recognition to all city cameras would set an unprecedented shift in mass surveillance for the whole country. It would build the infrastructure for a database that would record our facial features, personal characteristics, and our whereabouts, every time we stepped outside our front doors. All of that data, even if eventually deleted, can be used to train artificial intelligence to get better at recognizing and tracking us over time.
Disturbingly, a collection of cameras positioned across New Orleans is already capable of tracking residents’ every move, recording our data, and trying to match our faces to databases of millions of images of people. These cameras were never approved by the people of New Orleans. They were set up by Project NOLA, a crime prevention nonprofit group, which we now know because of bombshell revelations in the Washington Post. Project NOLA has been secretly spying on New Orleans residents with live facial recognition cameras for years. These cameras are at undisclosed locations around the city, and most importantly, police use of this technology has been outlawed since the local community rallied behind a surveillance ban in 2021.
Enough is enough. Time and again, New Orleans has been used as a testing ground for disempowering programs against our Black and brown communities––not only for secretive racist mass surveillance tech but also for a racist charter school system that has deteriorated our youth’s education. We have been treated as a sacrifice zone for oil, gas, and plastic plants to destroy our ecosystem and poison our health, causing us to have the highest rates of cancer in the country. We are not guinea pigs, and we are not disposable.
As an immigrant, I am desperately sounding the alarm about how devastating this surveillance ordinance would be for all New Orleaneans, including our migrant communities. All over the country, our people are being snatched off the street, our families are being separated, and in New Orleans, even our U.S. citizen babies with cancer are being deported. If we roll out real-time facial recognition in New Orleans, we have to expect that our facial recognition data will be demanded by ICE, requested by Louisiana police, or even hacked by anti-immigrant groups—empowering Trump’s agenda of terrorizing and violating our immigrant communities' fundamental human rights.
Instead of doubling down and investing in costly, racist technology, we should refocus on the root causes of crime and harm. 26% of all adults in New Orleans have low literacy levels. At 22.6%, our poverty rate dwarfs the national average of 10%. Dystopian face surveillance doesn’t solve those problems, but it does put us all at risk. The good news is we already know how to do better. Just last week, The Advocate editorialized about the many community programs and nonprofit efforts that are successfully reducing crime in Louisiana year by year.
Our elected officials have a duty to their constituents: to protect our freedoms, defend our dignity, and keep us safe. Our problems can’t be solved with more cameras and surveillance; they have deep systemic roots that have to be addressed.
Edith Romero is a Honduran community organizer with Eye On Surveillance, a researcher, writer, and a Public Voices fellow of The OpEd Project, The National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice, and the Every Page Foundation.
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