Generational divides in American politics are nothing new, but they seem particularly striking now as the oldest Millennials turn 40 this year. Charlotte Alter has spent the past four years documenting these interesting political dynamics and joins The McCourtney Institute For Democracy to discuss with the team in this episode of the Democracy Works podcast.
An illustration of hands putting together a puzzle.
The concept of the common good in American society has undergone a remarkable transformation since the nation's founding. What began as a clear, if contested, vision of collective welfare has splintered into something far more complex and individualistic. This shift reflects changing times and a fundamental reimagining of what we owe each other as citizens and human beings.
The nation’s progenitors wrestled with this very question. They drew heavily from Enlightenment thinkers like John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who saw the social contract as a sacred covenant between citizens and their government. But they also pulled from deeper wells—the Puritan concept of the covenant community, the classical Republican tradition of civic virtue, and the Christian ideal of serving one's neighbor. These threads wove into something uniquely American: a vision of the common good that balances individual liberty with collective responsibility.
Early American communities understood this balance intimately. Take the New England town meeting, where citizens gathered to vote and deliberate on what served the community's needs. Or consider the barn-raising tradition of the frontier, where neighbors came together to help each other survive and thrive. These weren't just practical arrangements—they reflected a more profound understanding that individual flourishing depended on community well-being.
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But something changed along the way. The Industrial Revolution brought unprecedented wealth and mobility, but it also began to fray the bonds of local communities. Mass production and urbanization created new forms of anonymity. The rise of corporate power introduced new tensions between private profit and public good. By the early 20th century, the intimate connection between individual and community started to strain.
The post-World War II era accelerated these changes dramatically. The GI Bill and suburban expansion created new patterns of living that emphasized private space over public gatherings. Television brought the world into our living rooms but reduced face-to-face interaction. The rise of consumer culture shifted focus from citizen to customer, from participant to spectator. The common good became less like a shared project and more like a zero-sum game.
However, we find ourselves in a peculiar position. There are more ways to connect, yet many feel profoundly disconnected. There is accessibility to more information about social problems, yet we often feel powerless to address them. We speak of "community" constantly but struggle to define what that means in practice.
Our contemporary understanding of the social contract has become increasingly transactional. Many view it primarily through an economic lens—taxes paid for services rendered. Others see it through a regulatory framework—rules we follow to maintain order. Still, others question whether any meaningful social contract exists, pointing to persistent inequalities and broken promises.
This shift has profound implications for how we approach collective challenges. Consider our response to the climate crisis. The founders' generation might have seen this as a straightforward matter of common good, requiring collective action. Now, we debate whether individual conveniences should be sacrificed for collective benefit. Or look at public health. What was once understood as a shared responsibility has become highly politicized, with personal rights often pitted against community welfare.
Theological dimensions of this transformation are equally striking. Traditional religious understandings of covenant and community have not disappeared but they compete with newer theologies that emphasize individual salvation and prosperity. The biblical command to "love thy neighbor" now contends with interpretations prioritizing personal freedom over collective responsibility.
Yet, signs of renewal exist. Local movements for environmental justice, mutual aid networks, and community organizing efforts suggest an emerging reconnection of the common good. These initiatives often blend traditional understanding of collective welfare with contemporary needs and tools. They recognize that while the forms of community may change, the fundamental human need for connection and shared purpose remains constant.
A way forward requires neither a wholesale return to past models nor a complete embrace of individualistic modernity. Instead, we need a thoughtful synthesis that preserves the best of both. This means recovering specific traditional insights about human interdependence while acknowledging the reality of contemporary pluralism and complexity.
No one should ever assume that the common good is opposed to individual flourishing; rather, it is essential to such. Our founding agents understood this—liberty without responsibility becomes mere license. Second, we must rebuild deliberation and collective decision-making practices, adapting traditional forms like the town meeting to contemporary contexts. Finally, we must develop new narratives of shared purpose that speak to our time while drawing on enduring wisdom.
Inherently, a social contract is a sociopolitical arrangement and a moral vision, expressing our deepest beliefs about what we owe each other and why. As we face excessive challenges—from geopolitical instability, economic inequality, and technological disruption—recovering and renewing this vision becomes increasingly urgent.
The Founders saw these as mutually reinforcing rather than opposing forces. Their most incredible wisdom lay not in specific solutions but in this fundamental insight: that the self-government project requires individual virtue and collective commitment. It is important to remember that the social contract is not a static document but a living tradition that each generation must renew. It is a task not to replicate the past but to carry its essential hopes into new contexts. Thus, our flourishing remains inextricably connected to the common good.
Rev. Dr. F. Willis Johnson is a spiritual entrepreneur, author, and scholar-practitioner whose leadership and strategies around social and racial justice issues are nationally recognized and applied.
Students in a classroom.
“If we make money the object of man-training, we shall develop money-makers but not necessarily men.” - W.E.B. Du Bois
The current state of public education has many confused, anxious, and even fearful. Depending on the day, I feel any combination of the above, among other less-than-ideal adjectives. Simply, the future is uncertain. Schools are simultaneously cutting budgets and trying to remain relevant, all during an increasingly tense political climate.
In fact, it is often in the name of relevance that we are sacrificing the core of what it means to cultivate an educated citizenry. Despite the current moment being visibly unsettling, I’d argue that this is the logical culmination of what we’ve been asking for over the last generation of public education.
Over the last decade alone, the humanities have been increasingly cut at the university level. At the secondary level, the vast majority of funding is allocated to either subjects with state assessments or subjects that will “best prepare students for the 21st-century workforce.” We’ve collectively decided that the best form of education is utilitarian. The strength of our economy, rather than the strength of our society, has become our guiding light for how we structure our education system. Our current context is a feature, not a bug, of this approach.
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W.E.B. Du Bois prophesied this outcome over a century ago in his 1903 essay, “The Talented Tenth.” We’ve successfully developed money makers and we have built a system that rewards them. Need proof? Our current president is the richest man to ever hold the office and he has allocated much of his on-the-ground governing to the richest man in the world. We have money-makers but, in Du Bois’ words, have we created men?
In his essay, Du Bois immediately follows with his vision for education: “Men we shall have only as we make manhood the object of the work of the schools—intelligence, broad sympathy, knowledge of the world that was and is, and of the relation of men to it—this is the curriculum of that Higher Education which must underlie true life.” A deep education cultivates humanity. Almost a half-century later, in 1947, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. agreed. “Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education.” Intelligence may make someone money but character preserves society.
At the core of my role as executive director of the social studies nonprofit Thinking Nation, is to empower students to thrive as engaged and critical thinkers. We believe that this is imperative for the future of our democracy. We seek to reorient the social studies classroom around the discipline taught rather than the content explained. This empowers students to think deeply and equips them with the civic dispositions our current climate craves.
For instance, I was at a partner school classroom in Ventura, CA in February where 6th graders humanized the study of history through a Socratic seminar, comparing the ideas between Confucianism and Daoism. These students cited evidence in their discussion, asked for clarification, and encouraged one another. They were practicing the “broad sympathy, knowledge of the world” that Du Bois called for.
But, when many students look into their education mirror, they are told to see economic beings that only focus on the skills necessary for monetary success. This utilitarian approach demands us to cut funding in those more abstract disciplines like history and literature. Eventually, it leads us to potentially cut an entire executive department that services educational needs.
I saw this focus on our students’ humanity again at the California Council for the Social Studies Conference on March 7-9. Educators were discussing how to cultivate the needed dispositions in our students for civic success. The students, in their humanity, were our focus, not their utilitarian preparedness.
Du Bois and King centered the idea of human flourishing in their visions for education. We’ve chosen a different vision and we are experiencing, in real time, the consequences of that choice. If we want education to do more than reduce us to economic entities, we need to reevaluate our priorities, fund them accordingly, and work together to build an education system where students see themselves and others as the unique human beings we are.
At Thinking Nation, we are taking this seriously and prioritizing the teaching and assessing of critical dispositions like evaluating perspectives, historical empathy, and contextualization. We believe that this is the way forward: integrating civic dispositions into the curriculum wherever possible. This way, we are not simply creating absorbers of information equipped to join the utilitarian world as economic beings, but we are empowering thinkers and fostering a student’s humanity so they can contribute to a flourishing democracy and thrive in an ever-changing world.
I’m not sure what will happen in the next few years to public education. But, as a student of the past, I know nothing is inevitable. Changes can be made. We have the opportunity and tools to cultivate thinking citizens equipped with the skills and dispositions to contribute to a thriving democracy and society. But will we?
Zachary Cote is the executive director of Thinking Nation, a social studies education nonprofit based in Los Angeles. Prior to this role, he taught middle school history at a public charter school in south Los Angeles.
An oversized gavel surrounded by people.
In a recent post we quoted a journalist describing the Republican Party as anti-immigration. Many of our readers wrote back angrily to say that the Republican party is only opposed to immigrants who are present illegally.
But that's not true. And we're not shy of telling it like it is.
Recent Republican legislation and executive orders have sought to limit legal immigration, limit benefits for legal immigrants, and limit the rights of legal immigrants. Here are just some examples.
Immigrants may currently apply for asylum no matter how they enter the United States if they are seeking protection because they have suffered persecution or fear that they will suffer persecution. It's not unusual for asylum seekers to arrive between official ports of entry, look for Border Patrol agents and turn themselves in so that they can begin the asylum process. H.R. 871: RULES Act by Republican Rep. Anna Luna would make only entry at ports of entry an acceptable way to apply for asylum.
The Trump Administration ended Temporary Protected Status for 350,000 Venezuelans and 500,000 Haitian who through designations during the Biden Administration were able to obtain work permits and deportation protection.
And on January 20, U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced it was shutting down the CBP One app causing thousands of people who were trying to enter the U.S. legally to lose their appointments.
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There are several ways to be born or become a citizen, but one is in the Constitution: The Constitution's 14th Amendment reads, "All persons born ... in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States." Now Republicans are trying to change what "jurisdiction" means, contrary to the plain meaning of the word. On January 20, President Trump issued an executive order directing agencies to not "recognize" the citizenship of individuals born to parents either temporarily (e.g. with a visa) or unlawfully in the country, if they don't have citizenship another way. S. 304: Birthright Citizenship Act of 2025 and its companion legislation in the House, introduced by Republicans, would do the same, and dozens of similar bills have been introduced by Republicans over the last two decades. In unrelated but contradictory remarks, Trump's Secretary of Homeland Security said of her department, "We have jurisdiction over people who live here, people who leave here, and people who come here. ... I tell people we have jurisdiction over everything."
President Trump signed an executive order purporting to make English the official language of the country, though the president has no specific power to do so, and the executive order's only directive is merely that federal agencies won't provide language assistance to non-English speakers seeking federal services, which had been required since the 1990s. Around 15% of United States citizens speak a language other than English at home, as of course do many lawfully present immigrants (not to mention that in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory inhabited by U.S. citizens, Spanish is the predominant language). Republicans have been proposing bills in Congress to make English the official language for decades.
H.R. 746: America First Act by Republican Reps. Jodey Arrington and Chip Roy would deny numerous federal benefits for health, child care and school meals, housing, and natural disasters to non-citizens and their children not only to those present unlawfully but also to those present legally through Temporary Protected Status and asylum. (It also would deny benefits to unlawful immigrants who themselves arrived in the country as children but now may be adults.)
You've probably read about the detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student and lawful permanent resident (i.e. green card holder) who was born a Palenstinian refugee in Syria and led pro-Palestinian protests here. He's being detained with the intention of deportation. But he hasn't been charged with a crime. It's expected that the Trump Administration will cite protest activities that would be protected by the First Amendment if he were a citizen but may not protect him from deportation. It's not clear how courts will rule on it. If they rule against Khalil, First Amendment rights will be significantly curtailed for immigrants.
The Washington, D.C. municipal government and municipalities in California, Maryland and Vermont allow non-citizens to vote in local elections. It sounds odd today, but it was actually normal for non-citizens to be permitted to vote through the early 20th Century. Republicans in Congress have sought to block D.C.'s municipal governmentfrom doing so.
Look, we know that politicians' have sometimes said that their goal is to remove incentives for illegal immigration. But we have always reported not on what politicians say but what they do. And what the policies in this article would do is limit legal immigration, reduce benefits for legal immigrants, and limit the rights of legal immigrants. And while obviously not all Republican officials have supported all of these policies, as a whole the party has clearly adopted an anti-immigration stance.
Recent Republican policies and proposals limiting legal immigration and legal immigrants' benefits and rights was originally published by GovTrack.us and is shared with permission.
Joshua Tauberer is the founder of GovTrack.us and created the site initially as a hobby in 2004.
Amy West has been the GovTrack research and communications manager since February 2017.
The most important question in American politics today is whether Donald Trump will respect court orders. Judges have repeatedly ruled against his administration.
But will he listen?
In America, the courts—not the president or Congress—resolve disputes and, in the process, define the Constitution and federal laws. This principle is known as judicial review. It arose in the 1803 case Marbury v. Madison, when Chief Justice John Marshall declared that judges define the law: “It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.”
It’s been this way ever since.
Following court orders allows expectations to be set, disputes to be resolved, decisions to be honored, and litigants to move on. This is especially important when, like today, political passions run high. Without a deep and powerful tradition in America of respecting court orders as the last word, disputes would drag on, multiply, and intensify.
Indeed, if we don't all agree on who has the last word, then no one does. And if no one does, then we won’t have a coherent, stable or effective legal system.
Donald Trump cares little about America’s legal traditions, including judicial review. He just wants to get his way. He’s already pushing the limits, arguably violating a judge’s March 15 order to return two planes carrying deportees Trump alleges are Venezuelan gang members. And Vice President JD Vance, for his part, recently suggested on X (formerly Twitter) that the administration wouldn’t follow certain court orders: “If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that's also illegal. Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power.”
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This attitude is disturbing to many, including Chief Justice John Roberts. In his 2024 year-end report, Roberts warned that officials “from across the political spectrum have raised the specter of open disregard for federal court rulings. These dangerous suggestions, however sporadic, must be soundly rejected.”
Some of Trump’s biggest supporters agree. Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, for example, recently said that, “I think you can dislike the court’s opinion and think they’re wrong on the substance, and criticize them for that, and you certainly can vigorously appeal … I think outright, sort of just like, ‘Oh, we’re just going to ignore the decision completely?’ That, I think you can’t do.”
Having the power to resolve disputes reposed in the judiciary isn’t just blind tradition. It makes good sense. Judges restrain the presidency. They check administrative agencies. And they keep Congress in line. Under the Constitution, moreover, judges sit for life upon good behavior. They don’t campaign or run for reelection and are therefore politically insulated. Yet because judges must be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate, democratic accountability undergirds their selection.
The result is a judiciary that tends to be more rational and principled than the executive and legislative branches. “The Judiciary,” Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 78, “has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society, and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither force nor will, but merely judgment.” While the judiciary has made mistakes, compared to the political branches (often a low bar, admittedly) it has exercised its judgment well. It does so today with consistent rulings rejecting Trump’s overreaching executive actions.
America’s constitution, legislation, and judicial opinions set laws on paper. However, respect for the rule of law, in people’s hearts and minds, is the necessary precondition for the legal system to work. This starts with respecting court orders. Judicial review has been a bedrock tradition of American democracy for more than two centuries. It has been tested in great legal battles over the separation of powers, federalism, abortion, desegregation, and even presidential powers during wartime. And it has survived: people on the losing side of cases, including presidents, have uniformly respected court orders.
The question looming over the country today is whether Donald Trump will, too.
William Cooper is the author of How America Works … And Why It Doesn’t
