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Anti-choice lawmakers are working to gut voter-approved amendments protecting abortion access.
Trials Show Successful Ballot Initiatives Are Only the Beginning of Restoring Abortion Access
Feb 06, 2026
The outcome of two trials in the coming weeks could shape what it will look like when voters overturn state abortion bans through future ballot initiatives.
Arizona and Missouri voters in November 2024 struck down their respective near-total abortion bans. Both states added abortion access up to fetal viability as a right in their constitutions, although Arizonans approved the amendment by a much wider margin than Missouri voters.
That was just the beginning of protracted legal battles.
Amy Myrick, senior counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights, said ballot measures are a powerful and important step in returning abortion access to a state, but success on Election Day doesn’t mean the fight is over.
“State constitutions don’t automatically repeal laws,” Myrick said. “Sometimes, even if the state isn’t doing it, other groups or legislators will jump in to try to retain these restrictions.”
The trial over Arizona’s abortion restrictions wrapped up this week, Arizona Mirror reported. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Gregory Como seemed unconvinced of the argument that certain laws around how abortion medication can be prescribed, waiting periods, and bans on abortions in cases of fetal abnormalities should remain enforceable.
A similar trial in Missouri will wrap up on Jan. 26 after hours of testimony about more than a dozen abortion restrictions state officials are seeking to preserve. The Republican supermajority state legislature is also putting a countermeasure to reinstate the abortion ban on the ballot in November, paired with a ban on gender-affirming care for minors.
Arizona and Missouri have what are known by abortion-rights advocates as Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers, or TRAP, laws passed by legislatures before the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision in 2022. Even states without bans, like Connecticut, Maryland, and Rhode Island, have statutes in place that the Guttmacher Institute considers TRAP laws. Abortion providers are subject to state licensing and other medical requirements, but as of December 2025, 25 states still have laws that impose additional regulations for clinics, according to Guttmacher, such as facility size and transfer agreement requirements, or admitting privileges at local hospitals within 30 miles.
Officials and legislators usually argue in the statehouse and in court that the extra parameters increase the safety of abortion procedures, but the safety record is strong under existing medical requirements and is safer than childbirth, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Studies show the risk of maternal death associated with childbirth is about 14 times higher than the risk associated with abortion.
But there are also other laws that advocates say are meant to discourage or frustrate those seeking abortion care, such as mandatory vaginal exams, waiting periods, or a requirement that the same physician must see an abortion medication patient over two subsequent visits. Some of those laws were passed over decades and helped drive abortion providers away, including in Missouri.
As a result, even though Missourians overturned the ban, abortion care remains difficult to obtain, and many are still leaving the state to get it, according to Missouri Independent.
“Because constitutional amendments don’t overturn conflicting laws, people can still experience injuries under these laws,” said Prachi Dave, senior managing legal and policy director at If/When/How, a reproductive rights legal services and advocacy organization. “For example, if a waiting period is interfering with my ability to access the care I am guaranteed under the newly passed amendment, then I would ask a judge to affirm that the law is getting in the way of my right. In doing so, lawsuits give practical effect to constitutional amendments.”
In a Michigan lawsuit led by advocacy groups, a judge ruled in May that a mandatory waiting period was unconstitutional after voters approved an initiative codifying reproductive rights.
Wendy Heipt, attorney for advocacy organization Legal Voice in Washington, said even if some laws were ruled unconstitutional, they may have to be litigated again because the basis for the unconstitutional argument relied on the Roe v. Wade case that the U.S. Supreme Court overturned almost four years ago.
Heipt frequently works on cases in Idaho, where many lawsuits over the state’s near-total abortion ban have taken place in the past three years. Though still in effect, there is an effort to overturn the ban via ballot in November.
The initiative is different from those approved in Arizona and Missouri because people in Idaho cannot submit constitutional amendments—only proposed state laws—for ballot consideration directly.
Melanie Folwell, lead organizer of the reproductive rights initiative in Idaho, said even if successful, it’s only one leg of a long race in restoring access. The initiative group, Idahoans United for Women and Families, drafted a bill that would have repealed existing abortion laws, but it was too long and legally complicated for the ballot. Instead, what they’ve come up with for voters is meant to establish a right to reproductive health privacy without undue government interference and override existing laws.
The outcome of Missouri’s trial could be instructive for Idaho abortion-rights advocates, because the political environments are similar. Idaho has a lengthy list of its own waiting periods for abortion care, mandatory counseling, and ultrasound requirements, and elected officials in the Republican-led state have repeatedly signaled their opposition to abortion access, including the attorney general. The legislature also has a Republican supermajority.
And since it can’t be a constitutional amendment, any new law may be more vulnerable to legal challenges.
“There are things to learn from every one of the states that have reproductive access on the ballot, which is 17 states at this point,” Folwell said. “It is always instructive for us to see what plays out in that state’s legislature, what plays out with their courts.”
Myrick said the legal battles can feel discouraging, but voters shouldn’t let it stop them from using their voices to make their policy preferences known.
“Ballot measures are not the silver bullet. We need a lot of follow-up to make these rights real. And the attempts to keep these restrictions after the voters have spoken are blatantly anti-democratic, but they’re still happening,” Myrick said.
Trials Show Successful Ballot Initiatives Are Only the Beginning of Restoring Abortion Access was originally reported by Kelcie Moseley-Morris for News From the States, published on Rewire News Group, and is republished with permission.
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Rustic betsy ross flag mounted on weathered white wall.
Photo by Eric Wiser on Unsplash
It Is Our Right, It Is Our Duty: A Rebel’s Declaration of Noncooperation
Feb 05, 2026
Our Long Train of Abuses
Over a snowy winter weekend, I watched Ken Burns’ The American Revolution. (And yes, if you’re not already supporting your local PBS and NPR station, you should do that today).
We’re approaching the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and as I watched, I kept thinking about a particular passage, the one that, if I’m being honest, I probably remember best from National Treasure. Yes, the heist movie where the incomparable Nicholas Cage reads:
"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
Radical words. The idea that people have not just the right but the duty to resist tyranny and build something better.
Now, before we get too swept up in revolutionary fervor, let’s be clear about the Revolution’s origins. They weren’t purely noble – the Revolution grew partly from colonists’ frustration over not being able to steal more Indigenous land, partly from resentment over paying taxes to fund the King’s foreign wars, and partly from elites protecting their own wealth and power. And the Declaration was written by fallible men who enslaved other human beings even as they wrote “all men are created equal.” The hypocrisy was not lost on those excluded – enslaved people, women, Indigenous peoples – who would have to fight for generations to claim those rights for themselves. And we’re still in that struggle today.
But the ideas in the Declaration were still revolutionary. For the first time, a nation declared its founding principle: government derives power from the consent of the governed. People have inherent rights, and when these rights are violated, they have an obligation to act.
Those weren’t just abstract principles. The founders knew that naming tyranny was itself an act of resistance. And as we often forget, the Declaration was a public letter holding the King accountable through a detailed list of his abuses and usurpations.
That brings us to now.
So as the documentary went through that list, many of these grievances felt oddly familiar. Not because history repeats, but because tyranny follows patterns. The Declaration states, “Let facts be submitted to a candid world” – so, let us submit our facts:
- "He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power" → Threats to deploy military against protestors. National Guard targeting sanctuary cities. Civilian oversight bypassed.
- "For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury" → ICE agents round people up and demand papers. Detainees held without lawyers. Mass deportations without hearings, families separated. Due process is treated as optional.
- "For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent" → Unilateral tariffs function as taxes on ordinary Americans. Tax cuts for billionaires while gutting services. Federal funding weaponized against resistant states.
- "For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world" → Threats to annex territories. Economic coercion against allies. Trade wars are weaponized for political gain. International laws and agreements were abandoned.
- "He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us" → January 6th perpetrators pardoned and praised. Political violence is celebrated. Lies are weaponized to divide neighbors.
- "For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit" → War criminals pardoned. Law enforcement shielded. Qualified immunity as blanket protection.
- "He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people" → Loyalty tests for political appointees. New enforcement units within agencies. Surveillance systems targeting dissenters. Review boards are designed to obstruct rather than govern.
- "For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments" → Regulatory agencies dismantled. Civil service protections stripped. Justice Department weaponized for vengeance. DOGE dismantles USAID, Education, USIP. Essential agencies gutted.
- "He has obstructed the Administration of Justice" → Inspectors general fired. Whistleblowers retaliated against. Accountability dismantled.
- "He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone" → Judges attacked for rulings. Appointments as loyalty tests. Judicial independence is treated as an obstacle.
This is our long train of abuses today. The parallel is unmistakable. As the founders understood, when such abuses accumulate and reveal a systematic assault on our rights, the people have both the right and the duty to act.
It Is Our Right, It is Our Duty
The founders understood the cost of confronting tyranny head-on. Thomas Paine wrote in The American Crisis: “These are the times that try men's souls. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”
Well, it appears we are in those times again.
And yes, here I go again – processing this moment through the fantasy stories that taught me what resistance looks like. In a previous piece, I turned to fantasy novels. This time it’s the Star Wars universe. Whether it’s 1776 or a galaxy far, far away, if we’re going to resist tyranny in 2026, we might as well learn from the Rebellion.
So what does the Rebellion teach us about this moment?
First: rebellions are, of course, built on hope. Without it, nothing else matters. It’s what keeps people going when the struggle seems impossible.
Second: the chaos is strategic (we know this). So much happening, so fast. The pace of it all outstrips our ability to process it. As Andor reminds us: “It’s easier to hide behind 40 atrocities than a single incident.”
When everything is a crisis, we don’t know where to start. When every day brings new shocks, we become numb. When violations come so fast that we can’t keep up, we stop trying. We become overwhelmed, exhausted, and disengaged – which is exactly the goal.
But here’s what that frantic pace is actually hiding: desperation. Andor puts it perfectly: “The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear.”
The chaos isn’t a sign of strength; it’s a sign of how much effort it takes to maintain control.
Because tyranny can’t sustain itself. Someone has to collect the taxes, enforce the laws, run the systems, staff the agencies, and process the paperwork. Rulers need people to comply, to follow orders, to keep the machinery running. When people stop cooperating, the whole thing falls apart.
Federal workers refusing illegal orders. Civil servants refuse to leave when fired illegally. Town halls erupting over agency cuts. Economic boycotts are costing billions. School districts are saying no. Corporations responding to pressure. Communities organizing against deportation raids.
These aren’t symbolic gestures. They’re proof: those in power can’t govern without our cooperation.
This is the concept of Pillars of Support. Every government relies on cooperation from key institutions: civil servants, police and military, media, faith communities, labor, business, and courts. These pillars hold up the system. And when enough people within these pillars refuse to cooperate, the structure becomes unstable.
You’re likely part of one of these pillars, or you know someone who is. Whether you work for the government, belong to a union, run a business, attend a place of worship, consume media, or simply participate in the economy.
That means you have power. The question is whether you'll use it.
The American Revolution wasn’t won just through military force. It was won through boycotts of British goods, through pamphlets and town squares, through ordinary people deciding together they would not comply in advance.
That refusal to comply – that noncooperation – is how you withdraw support from the pillars.
And it comes in many forms:
- Economic: Boycotts. Strikes. Divestment. Coordinated boycotts have hit 11% of Target's sales in a single day. Tesla boycotts have cost over $100 billion. Workers can organize slowdowns or walk out. If you have a 401k, you’re an investor – move your money to funds that don't support companies that are complicit in repression.
- Social: Refuse to normalize the abnormal. Cancel memberships to organizations that stay silent. Stop attending events where harmful policies are being implemented. Most importantly: actively protect those being targeted. Provide sanctuary. Make your community a place where resistance is supported.
- Political: Civil servants can slow or refuse illegal orders – follow procedures so precisely that nothing gets done, or refuse outright. Organize colleagues who will refuse together. If you work in any pillar institution – or know someone who does – talk to them and encourage them to question harmful orders. If you’re on a jury, you can refuse to convict for unjust laws. Protect whistleblowers. Mass defections happen when people realize they're not alone.
- Building alternatives: Mutual aid networks that feed people when the government won’t. Community defense funds that bail people out and pay legal fees. Alternative news sources and information networks when mainstream media fails us. Neighborhood programs that protect immigrants. These are the structures we need to survive this moment, and eventually replace the systems that have failed us.
But here’s what we must not do: we must not become violent. Yes, the Revolution became a war. But it was built on boycotts, organizing, and refusal to cooperate – and that’s what we’re drawing from, not the warfare. Violence is what the authorities want – it gives them an excuse to crack down harder, to justify repression, to paint resistance as lawlessness. We are the people saying no more violence, no more harassment, no more brutality. The moment we match their tactics is the moment we lose both the moral high ground and strategic advantage.
Nonviolent resistance works. Research shows that nonviolent movements are twice as likely to succeed as violent ones – from the civil rights movement, to Otpor in Serbia, to the anti-apartheid struggle – mass participation and moral clarity make repression backfire. They attract broader participation, make it harder for authorities to justify crackdowns, and create opportunities for defections from within the pillars.
New Guards for Our Future Security
This moment is asking a lot of us. It’s overwhelming. People don’t know where to start, what will make a difference, or whether anything they do even matters.
Andor has something to say about that, too:
"Remember this: There will be times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy.
Remember this: The frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward.
Remember this: Try."
Here’s the reality: I guarantee someone in your community is already doing this work. Someone is organizing mutual aid, running an immigrant defense network, and building alternatives. Your first step isn’t to create something new; it’s to find them and join them.
If you have 10 minutes:
- Research one organization in your community doing this work, then follow them and sign up for their email list
- Text three friends and ask them to pick one thing from this list to do together
- Call your representatives (use Resistbot or 5 Calls for scripts) – pick one issue from the list above and demand action
- Join one coordinated boycott (check Boycott Central for current campaigns) and tell people why
- Carefully identify a trusted colleague and talk about what you're seeing and what you can do together, especially if you’re in one of the pillars
If you have an hour or more:
- Go to a town hall, school board, or city council meeting
- Volunteer at a mutual aid distribution, or use Mutual Aid Hub to find or start one in your community
- Print and distribute "Know Your Rights" flyers to local businesses about ICE encounters – the Immigrant Defense Project has free materials
- Offer practical support to people taking action – rides, childcare, meals, whatever you can manage
- If you know someone who works in government, law enforcement, or a complicit company, reach out and share resources about their rights and power
If you have ongoing capacity:
- Join a rapid response network (ICE watch, protest support, bail fund)
- Get trained in nonviolent resistance through Freedom Trainers and train others in your community
- Organize your workplace or neighborhood – groups like Choose Democracy and Beautiful Trouble offer free trainings on how to build power locally
- Use your professional skills pro bono – legal aid, therapy, tech support, tutoring, accounting
- Create secure channels for whistleblowers and defectors in your field
These are entry points. Most of us start here: showing up, learning, connecting with others doing this work. That’s essential. But breaking down the pillars requires moving beyond visibility into strategic, sustained noncooperation. The goal isn’t just to protest what’s happening. It’s to make tyranny too costly to sustain.
We’ve done this before.
The Revolution wasn’t won by the powerful alone. It required the mass participation we've been talking about – people refusing to cooperate with tyranny, even when facing the world's most powerful empire.
And that mass action required a promise.
The founders ended the Declaration with a pledge. They understood that resistance required solidarity. They were promising not to abandon each other. To stand together when things got hard. To risk everything for the possibility of something better.
So let’s recommit ourselves to that pledge: "We mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor… and May the Force be with us."
Sarah Beckerman is the founder of Global Forward Consulting and an experienced practitioner with over 15 years working at the intersection of democracy, development, and conflict resolution worldwide. She helps mission-driven leaders navigate complexity, build impactful initiatives, and turn bold ideas into action across the U.S. and around the world. Sarah previously served as Vice President of Programs at the One America Movement and held senior roles at the National Democratic Institute and the Truman National Security Project. She holds a master’s degree from American University and an undergraduate degree from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
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Sure, political activism is good for the system. It's also good for your health.
Sure, political activism is good for the system. It's also good for your health.
Rising Costs, Chronic Disease and AI: The Fight to Save U.S. Healthcare
Feb 05, 2026
In most industries, leaders can respond quickly when market conditions change. Within months, companies can shrink or expand their workforces, adopt innovative technologies, and reconfigure operations.
Healthcare lacks such flexibility. It takes a decade to train new physicians. Hospitals take years to plan, fund, and build — years longer than it takes for basic infrastructure in other industries.
With timelines like these, course correction in healthcare is inherently slow. Inaction or delays allow manageable threats to grow into crises. And by the time leaders move, it’s impossible to reverse the damage.
Two of the nation’s most pressing healthcare problems now face this reality. To make matters more challenging, we can’t fix one without solving the other.
The Affordability Cliff
Over the past 25 years, the nation’s total healthcare spending has climbed from $2 trillion to $5.3 trillion.
Businesses and the government have played “hot potato” with these rising costs.
To offset ever-higher premiums, employers slowed wage growth and switched to high-deductible health plans. In parallel, Medicare and Medicaid set payment increases well below the cost of delivering care, driving hospitals and physicians to make up the difference by charging higher rates to the privately insured.
The financial impact on families has been devastating. Half of Americans say they cannot afford their out-of-pocket expenses should they experience a major illness.
For everyone, financial challenges are mounting with no relief in sight. Insurance premiums are projected to rise by roughly 9% this year. In 2025, total U.S. medical costs rose more than 7% for the second consecutive year, pushing healthcare’s share of the economy to roughly 18%. Out-of-pocket spending by consumers climbed 7.2%, to exceed $500 billion, as demand for hospital care, prescription drugs, and physician services outpaced insurer projections.
Congressional action (and inaction) has amplified these pressures. December’s expiration of enhanced subsidies on the insurance exchanges is now driving double- and even triple-digit percentage premium increases for roughly 20 million enrollees. And beginning this year, another 8 to 10 million Americans could lose Medicaid coverage as new eligibility restrictions take effect.
Absent major intervention, healthcare spending is projected to exceed $7 trillion by the end of the decade, consuming more than one-fifth of the U.S. economy. At that point, small businesses will likely drop coverage for millions of employees. A major share of the federal spending will go toward paying off interest on the national debt. Funds, in turn, will be diverted from Medicare, Medicaid, and other healthcare programs.
And when the next recession begins (possibly within two years, according to historical analyses), the economic crisis will leave only one option: healthcare rationing.
To solve these financial issues without compromising the nation’s health, we will need to simultaneously address another major threat.
The Chronic Disease Epidemic
In the 21st century, the United States has experienced a scourge of chronic disease.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, roughly 194 million U.S. adults now live with at least one chronic condition such as diabetes, hypertension, or heart failure. About 130 million people report multiple chronic diseases.
You might assume that if the healthcare system could prevent younger generations from developing these conditions, total healthcare spending would fall. But prevention alone will not offset the cumulative burden of chronic disease that’s already embedded in the American population.
To understand why, consider a single condition: diabetes. A patient newly diagnosed with diabetes can usually avoid serious, costly complications through lifestyle changes and relatively low-cost medications.
But when diabetes remains poorly controlled for a decade or more, biological damage accumulates. Each year, the risk of kidney failure or heart attack rises significantly. As a result, the annual cost of caring for a single patient with persistent, uncontrolled diabetes averages over $100,000 (four times more than someone who newly develops the disease). Thus, to offset the medical costs for an individual with a long history of diabetes, our nation would need to prevent four new cases, not just one.
Further complicating matters, effective chronic disease control requires substantial upfront investment, while the financial returns arrive years later.
That makes timing critical: the longer we wait, the fewer viable options remain. According to CDC estimates, acting now (through better prevention and management) could avert up to half of all heart attacks, strokes, cancers, and kidney failures, reducing national healthcare spending by $1 to $1.5 trillion annually. But if policymakers hold off, the required investment will be too large (and the payoff too delayed) to be politically or financially feasible.
Generative AI: The Missing Solution For Both Threats
Rising healthcare costs and chronic disease are not separate crises. They are conjoined. We cannot make healthcare affordable without making Americans healthier.
Generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini offer a credible path to reverse both threats.
To illustrate what GenAI makes possible, consider hypertension, the leading cause of stroke in the United States. Despite the availability of clear clinical guidelines and inexpensive medications to manage the disease, blood pressure remains uncontrolled in roughly half of Americans who have it.
So, rather than patients relying on three or four office visits a year (the current standard for chronic disease treatment), generative AI would analyze daily readings from home blood pressure monitors, detect early worsening trends, and prompt timely medication adjustments or outreach — before irreversible damage occurs. With GenAI, medical care moves from episodic to continuous.
Ultimately, preventing hundreds of thousands of heart attacks, strokes, and kidney failures (and avoiding vast medical costs) is a far more effective solution than rationing care. The combination of dedicated doctors, empowered patients, and generative AI can accomplish this more easily and reliably than any of the three alone.
We still have the choice and power to act. But the window is closing.
Robert Pearl, the author of “ChatGPT, MD,” teaches at both the Stanford University School of Medicine and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He is a former CEO of The Permanente Medical Group.
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A Star Trek allegory reveals how outrage culture, media incentives, and political polarization feed on our anger—and who benefits when we keep fighting.
Getty Images//Stock Photo
What Star Trek Understood About Division—and Why We Keep Falling for It
Feb 05, 2026
The more divided we become, the more absurd it all starts to look.
Not because the problems aren’t real—they are—but because the patterns are. The outrage cycles. The villains rotate. The language escalates. And yet the outcomes remain stubbornly the same: more anger, less trust, and very little that resembles progress.
This isn’t a new problem. It’s an old one we’ve dressed up with better technology.
Gene Roddenberry understood this more than half a century ago. In the 1968 Star Trek episode Day of the Dove, the Federation and the Klingons find themselves trapped in a relentless conflict aboard the Enterprise. Each side is convinced the other is irredeemably hostile. Every insult escalates. Every clash justifies the next. Cooperation feels not only impossible, but immoral.
Then comes the reveal: an alien entity is feeding on their hatred. The fighting isn’t the point—it’s the fuel. As long as anger flows, the creature thrives.
The moment the crews stop fighting, it weakens. When they refuse to escalate, it dies.
Roddenberry wasn’t writing about aliens. He was writing about us.
Modern America doesn’t suffer from a shortage of disagreement. We suffer from a surplus of amplification—much of it built into the incentives of modern media, politics, and online life, regardless of ideology. Our divisions are constantly nudged, magnified, monetized, and weaponized by systems that profit from keeping us emotionally engaged and perpetually agitated. Politics has become performance. The media has become incentive engineering. Social platforms reward outrage with visibility and punish restraint with obscurity.
The result is a population that feels constantly under threat—yet oddly unable to name who actually benefits from the chaos.
Most people don’t wake up wanting conflict. They want stability, dignity, and a sense that the rules still matter. But outrage is contagious. Once it becomes habitual, it starts to feel like principle. We mistake emotional intensity for moral clarity. We confuse tribal loyalty with conviction.
And so we fight each other—over symbols, language, and exaggerated caricatures—while the underlying structures that profit from dysfunction remain largely untouched.
Like the crews in Day of the Dove, we are encouraged to believe that standing down is weakness. Refusing to escalate is surrender. That restraint is betrayal. The system depends on that belief. It cannot function if too many people pause long enough to ask a simple question: Who benefits from this never-ending fight?
Roddenberry’s answer wasn’t forced unity or naïve consensus. It was something far more unsettling: withdrawal.
The refusal to be endlessly provoked.
The refusal to let every disagreement become an existential crisis.
The refusal to confuse outrage with agency.
When the characters aboard the Enterprise stop feeding the conflict, the parasite starves. No speeches. No grand reforms. Just the quiet realization that rage, once denied reinforcement, loses its power.
That lesson hasn’t aged a day.
We don’t need fewer opinions. We need fewer systems that profit from turning disagreement into identity warfare. Until then, we will keep mistaking noise for truth and combat for courage—convinced we’re fighting each other, while something else quietly feeds.
Roddenberry warned us.We just forgot the episode.
Joe Palaggi is a writer and historian whose work sits at the crossroads of theology, politics, and American civic culture. He writes about the moral and historical forces that shape our national identity and the challenges of a polarized age.
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