As this dystopian election campaign has unfolded, my mind keeps being tugged by a passage in Plato’s Republic. It has unsettled — even surprised — me from the moment I first read it in graduate school. The passage is from the part of the dialogue where Socrates and his friends are talking about the nature of…

OXFORD, Md. It was such a marvelous idea: the United States of America. Obviously, we’ve never really pulled it all together under one hat, but it has always seemed that at least we were striving for a more perfect union. No more. Something changed — and quickly, as history goes. Actually, everything did. Massive immigration…

For at least half a century, the bedrock of confidence in democracy’s future has been its unquestioned stability in Europe and North America. The United States and Britain survived the near-total obliteration of democracy by the fascist powers in World War II. Then the re-establishment and rapid consolidation of liberal democracies across Western Europe—and especially…

A lot of Americans are viscerally angry at the political system. They hate Washington, they don’t trust politicians, and they are increasingly willing to vote for populist outsiders—like Donald Trump. But we usually assume that for all of their disgust with political reality, they remain as loyal to the ideal of democracy as previous generations…

The state of our democracy isn’t so strong Three days ago, President Obama warned about the health of America’s democracy. “Our Constitution is a remarkable, beautiful gift. But it’s really just a piece of parchment. It has no power on its own,” Obama said. “Whether or not we stand up for our freedoms. Whether or…