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Francesca Hong Gains Momentum in Wisconsin Democratic Governor’s Race

Francesca Hong Gains Momentum in Wisconsin Democratic Governor’s Race

Lawyering in a Good Cause Can Go Bad and Threaten the Rule of Law

Lawyering in a Good Cause Can Go Bad and Threaten the Rule of Law

Travis Scott, Benny Safdie, Elliot Page, Corey Hawkins, Tom Holland, Emma Thomas, Christopher Nolan, Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Lupita Nyong'o, Charlize Theron, John Leguizamo, Zendaya, Samantha Morton, Himesh Patel, Jon Bernthal, and Logan Marshall-Green attend the premiere of "The Odyssey" presented by Universal Pictures on July 14, 2026 in New York City.

The Odyssey Isn’t Real, But American Diversity Is

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After School, Before It’s Too Late for Texas Students

Why America Needs Its Nonprofits to Manage Disasters

Why America Needs Its Nonprofits to Manage Disasters

Numbers don't lie: Copies of the Constitution are selling at a record pace

U.S. Constitution
Sara Swann/The Fulcrum
The Fulcrum
By The FulcrumOct 16, 2019
The Fulcrum
The Fulcrum staff.
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Civic education has disappeared? Print is no longer the best way to consume important information? Try persuading nearly a million people who have purchased copies of the Constitution in the past four years — at a record-setting pace.

Donald Trump's presidency, and the persistent challenges to democratic norms and the separation of federal powers it has spawned, sure seem to be the reason.

"There have been some other smaller spikes in Constitution sales in recent history — such as 2010, following the 2009 founding of the Tea Party," said Kristen McLean, a publishing industry analyst for the market research and retail sales tracking firm NPD Group Inc. "That spike is dwarfed by what we have been seeing since these last few years. Regardless of your political affiliation, there is no doubt that our current political climate has done wonders for constitutional engagement."

Sales of the Constitution hit a record 275,000 copies in 2016, the year Trump won the White House, and have increased 60 percent while he's been in office, NPD estimates. Sales have averaged 19,800 copies a month since January 2017, as compared with 7,500 monthly during Barack Obama's first term and 5,600 in George W. Bush's second term.

The firms says print sales spiked in the weeks after Trump accepted the Republican nomination, after his election, after the inauguration, after the protests in Charlottesville, Va., during Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court confirmation hearings and after Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the House was opening an impeachment inquiry.


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The Democrat Is Out in Idaho Senate Race. Now It’s Independent Todd Achilles vs. Jim Risch

Todd Achilles

Obtained from Achilles' Facebook post.

The Democrat Is Out in Idaho Senate Race. Now It’s Independent Todd Achilles vs. Jim Risch

BOISE, Idaho—David Roth, the Democratic nominee for US Senate in Idaho, ended his campaign Tuesday evening, leaving independent Todd Achilles as the only well-funded challenger to Republican Sen. Jim Risch.

Roth's statement did not mention Achilles. It did not mention Risch either. Instead, the Idaho Falls consultant said he had "concluded that I can make the greatest difference by focusing my time and energy on helping Democrats win up and down the ballot."

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Military education. Student in soldier uniform learning at wooden table indoors, selective focus

Millions join the military to afford college. This essay examines military education benefits, student debt, and why higher education shouldn't depend on military service.

Liudmila Chernetska/Getty Images

You Shouldn't Have to Go To War to Go To College

There are many reasons to join the military, but one of the most enticing is education. Indeed, a 2017 poll conducted by the Department of Defense found that 49% of Army recruits signed up to pay for their education. It makes sense. Military education packages are incredibly attractive, which is quite the recruitment carrot. For a huge number of recruits, joining the military means finding a way to pay for school they couldn’t otherwise afford. That may say less about the luster of military benefits and more about a problem in our public policy. As education scholar William Ayers wrote back in 2006, as recruitment fell short of quotas, “High schools have thus become battlefields for the hearts and minds of young people…recruiters dangle gifts and promises of future benefits before teenagers in an effort to fill the ranks of an all-volunteer military.” Is our country making it hard to get an education on purpose?

Some critics suggest military recruitment strategies have sought to weaponize poverty. By the 1980s, the term "poverty draft" had gained traction, articulating the idea that the enlisted ranks of the military were composed of young people with limited economic opportunities. There is speculation that the Pentagon even embraced programs like No Child Left Behind as part of a broader strategy to improve recruitment by targeting low-income youth. Though these may be cynical perspectives on a simple matter of correlation, it does appear that the military struggles to draw youth to join the ranks whenever more attractive alternative economic pathways emerge. After a long recruitment drought, last year’s numbers finally climbed, but Army officials link it to “a higher unemployment rate among people aged 16 to 24…” In other words, if the economy is depressed enough, as long as the military is one of the few employers still hiring, a recruitment drought won’t be so obvious.

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Global civic education helps students build trust, navigate ambiguity, and work across differences. Research shows it can strengthen civic leadership and reduce polarization.

Photo Courtesy of Tilting Futures

Why Fixing Polarization Requires Students to Cross Borders

I've been running global civic education programs for twelve years, and I keep seeing the same pattern: college-age students arrive believing they know how the world works and that their perspective is fact. Months later, after sustained global engagement, they return home fundamentally different, with their walls down and having gained a visceral understanding that their perspective is just that: a perspective, not the truth.

There's a reason this transformation matters so much at this age. This is the moment when mental models solidify into frameworks about how the world works, about who deserves trust, and about what's possible across difference. But without exposure to people and cultures that have alternative perspectives, those frameworks harden into us-versus-them certainties rather than nurture curiosity, further entrenching the polarization that is fracturing our country. Too often this polarization is framed as a knowledge problem rather than a moral perception problem.

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SDI Productions/Getty Images

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To the President of the United States, the Leaders of the Congress, and Our Fellow Americans Entrusted with the Powers of Government:

When, in the ordinary course of a free republic, disagreements arise among citizens concerning the proper exercise of power, it is neither unusual nor dishonorable that earnest convictions should differ. Such diversity has long been the strength of our nation, for liberty has never depended upon unanimity of opinion, but upon mutual respect under a common Constitution.

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