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.
Two of the most widely discussed concepts in social theory, psychology and political philosophy are independence and interdependence. Each concept can be defined in a broadly positive way, but however the concepts are defined they can also be the target of criticism.
Independence can be defined as a condition where someone or some institution or some political entity is capable of existing on its own without having to rely on others to sustain itself. With interdependence, two people, organizations or countries are mutually dependent on each other for their survival.
A country which declares its independence from a colonial ruler is therefore thought to be better off for having separated from the country which has dominated it. At the same time, a person who pursues independence to the point that he or she fails to rely on others who wish to have a more intimate relationship may be the cause of a failed interdependent relationship.
Many relationships, be they personal, professional or political, have some dimensions which involve healthy interdependence and some which involve excessive independence that thwarts healthy interdependence. Two partners in a marriage may have a relationship with healthy financial interdependence but unhealthy emotional interdependence. Or, indeed, the relationship may have both unhealthy financial interdependence and unhealthy emotional interdependence as in the case where a wife is financially dependent on her husband, he physically abuses her, and she cannot leave him because she becomes emotionally dependent on him. Psychologists also refer to the concept of co-dependency to explain relationships with these unhealthy, even dangerous, patterns.
The meaning of life may in the end come down to seeking a balance between independence and interdependence, yet recognizing that it will be impossible to ever achieve this balance as one will always be striving to become more independent or more interdependent. Still, we should always analyze our personal, professional and political relationships to try to determine when we have instances of either excessive independence, excessive dependence or lack of interdependence.
In the United States today it would appear that we have at least two major camps with respect to the independence/interdependence tension. On the one hand, we have citizens which identify with the Republican Party and the value of independence. Republicans, as a rule, believe that the federal government as well as state governments should promote laws and regulations which promote the value of independence -- the liberty and autonomy of persons.
This amounts to celebrating the value of independence, whether it concerns guns, higher taxes or reducing environmental legislation and regulations. Republicans stand for a society in which the government does not restrict individual independence or liberty, recognizing that some restrictions are necessary. Libertarians go much further.
Republicans may also be more inclined to promote a foreign policy that stands for an America that has fewer moral commitments to other countries (with the exception of countries like Israel). Ideally we would be as independent from other countries as possible. Certainly, Trump's America First philosophy took that approach.
Democrats, in contrast, are more inclined to promote the value of interdependence when articulating a vision of the relationship between citizens and government, since everything from health care to transportation and national defense requires government support. Medicare, Medicaid, the 1956 Interstate Highway Act and our $600 billion plus annual defense budget all rest on a concept of interdependence. Democrats believe that the federal government and state governments have a moral responsibility to provide citizens with the support they need to pursue educational and employment opportunities to realize their potential and provide for their families.
Democrats are also more inclined to promote a vision of foreign policy that accepts the need for economic, political, and military interdependence with our allies in North America, Europe, the Far East, Australia and South America.
The struggle to unite well-formulated, inspiring concepts of independence and interdependence is endless. Moreover, the debates over balancing freedom and equality, individualism and community, and economic growth and economic efficiency, though valuable, have become tiresome. We need some new concepts at the highest level of political and social debate. Certainly the concept of interdependence is not as widely discussed as the concept of independence.
Politicians, political consultants, the media, think tanks and academia would do well to elevate both concepts. These concepts can also incorporate concepts like freedom, equality, individualism, community, economic growth and economic efficiency. If we are going to wrestle with ongoing challenges over guns, climate change, race, gender and sexual orientation, and different ways to improve capitalism and push for peace in the world, we must transcend much of our current vocabulary.
image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.