Happy 250th!
I’m at the New Jersey shore with family and friends, where we’ve spent this Fourth of July eating hot dogs, playing miniature golf, and wading into the ocean that my great-grandparents crossed to escape calamities they knew about and much greater calamities that they didn’t. Tonight we’ll see the fireworks, weather permitting.
And yes, on the crowded beach today you can find people sporting MAGA and “45-47” hats, and even a giant “Trump 2028” flag—a stark reminder of the millions who would redefine the meaning of our 250-year-old experiment to something dark and authoritarian, the opposite of what its founders intended. Of course, those forces find mirror images on the left end of the political spectrum, where one can find millions more who fully agree with MAGA about the failures of liberalism and the Enlightenment, differing only on the secondary question of which racist thugs should rule instead.
Despite everything, I don’t believe that both factions together constitute a majority. Even on the beach, the MAGA hats are vastly outnumbered by “250” banners and girls in stars-and-stripes bikinis, Americans who just want to celebrate.
Despite everything, I remain thoroughly American if I’ve ever been anything, and invested in the country’s future if I’ve ever been invested in anything.
JD Vance and his friends, who might rule the country after the predictable failure of “Trump 2028,” make a huge deal about “Heritage Americans.” Of course the point of such phrases is to exclude those like me, and recent immigrants, and even (incredibly) JD’s own wife. On reflection, though: could I, too, count as a Heritage American at this point? After all, my family has now been here for half the country’s history. My grandfather, who grew up in poverty, became a professional boxer in Philadelphia and Atlantic City during the Great Depression. He then joined the Army and ended up clearing German mines in North Africa and Italy in WWII. He was assigned to a company of Southerners, who had never met a Jew and were shocked that my grandfather didn’t have horns—but by the war’s end, my grandfather and the relatively few others in his company who remained alive had become best friends. My grandfather told me that he could understand the German POWs who they captured tolerably well, since German was similar enough to Yiddish, but who he could never understand was the British.
As for me, I grew up in the town of Washington Crossing, PA, maybe a mile’s walk from where this happened (and where it’s still reenacted every Christmas):
My earliest childhood hero (that I can remember) was Ben Franklin, whose institute in Philadelphia I visited often. I didn’t even recognize as unusual at the time how the founding of the country didn’t feel like a remote abstraction to me, but was all around me, as if it was yesterday.
That the founders of the United States created the model for all time of how to bend the arc of human history a little bit away from its usual horribleness, of how to overthrow a despotism without instituting an even worse despotism in its place, of how to found a new civilization on ideas and principles rather than raw power … is one of those things that seemed true to me as a child and that still seems true to me today.
May this greatest experiment continue for another 250 years. May it triumph against all those within and without who would see it destroyed.
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Comment #1 July 4th, 2026 at 11:46 pm
Happy 4th of July!
It is indeed astonishing what founding fathers accomplished hundreds of years ago. As I get he older and see and learn, the more astonished I become for how extraordinary it has been.
May this country shine again across the world as it did for so many decades as the beacon of hope on the hill, the land of the free and the home of the brave. May you shine for centuries to come.
Comment #2 July 5th, 2026 at 4:12 am
A very happy 250th birthday! I wish you and your family all the best with your celebrations, Scott!
And similarly to all Americans reading this 🙂
I like the reflection everyone has on the values of the country, the contemplation on “what makes it great”, and on how the diverse history has shaped the nation.
Surely there are plenty of improvements possible (as with any other nation), but there is a strong foundation to work from 🙂
It’s crazy to see how Trump et al. are subverting all those good things to fit inside their crappy ideology, and how seemingly they can get away with it too with a large portion of Americans. It’s a shame that the Trump administration puts such a huge downer on the whole celebration by claiming _they_ are the epitome of America.
Hoping that over-time all Americans will see the idiocy of that…
But for now, please enjoy your celebrations of all the good the USA has brought!
Be proud of all the greatness!
Comment #3 July 5th, 2026 at 5:57 am
Scott:
you write:
“He was assigned to a company of Southerners, who had never met a Jew and were shocked that my grandfather didn’t have horns.”
when I was in high school in New Jersey, some 60+ years ago, I had a good friend who was a new arrival from Appalachia, and he told me that I was the first jew he ever met and he was very surprised that I didn’t have horns, as he had been taught that jews had horns.
as my mother told me when I was a teenager and I said that I was an atheist and didn’t think of myself as a jew: “it doesn’t matter whether or not you consider yourself to be a jew, you’ll realize you’re a jew when you’re put in a cattle car”.
Comment #4 July 5th, 2026 at 8:05 am
Should you ever peruse the federalist/antifederalist papers the level and amount of debate for adopting the constitution is astonishing! Also the story about Gödel finding a logical loophole in the constitution(article V basically) while studying for his citizenship test is one of my favorite stories. Happy 4th everyone!
Comment #5 July 5th, 2026 at 8:16 am
Alex Xanthakis #4: The account by Morgenstern never explained exactly what loophole Gödel found, or thought he found, in the Constitution, and that’s been an interesting question ever since.
But probably it was just something boring, like “a populist president could pack the Supreme Court with sycophants and have a compliant majority in Congress, all of whom fear being primaried if they ever defy the president on anything, thereby allowing the president to effectively rule by decree and executive order”…
Comment #6 July 5th, 2026 at 9:51 am
I too have pleasant memories of the Franklin Institute and first time I saw an ocean was in Atlantic City. I remember quite a lot of conversations about the salt water taffy sold on the Boardwalk. When back home I found a way to acquire the Philadelphia White and Yellow pages and used to read through them and dream about the closest to Eden that I had ever been.
Your post is very nicely written.
Comment #7 July 5th, 2026 at 9:55 am
Scott #5
In case you are interested you can read more here(I think the analysis is pretty accurate):
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2010183&__cf_chl_f_tk=9LyB4AfSiUDXFHcBP_Y.fNXZP.HHhR4IuUhME_A0.Wg-1783263103-1.0.1.1-bQYbDl95C4RCtA4agRWYOv73aIj5j6TH7ZwMTKCsiYE
Of course you are absolutely correct about Morgenstern.
Comment #8 July 5th, 2026 at 11:37 am
Scott 5,
There’s a technical loophole in the constitution that would allow a party with a majority in the Senate, the House, and the presidency to cement power forever.
The loophole is this: to change the constitution is very hard—it requires a 2/3 majority in the house and the senate and 3/4 of state legislatures. However, to add new states to the union requires only a simple majority in the house and the senate.
Now suppose I’m the Republicans, with the white house and a majority in both houses of congress, and I want to cement power forever. All I have to do is add more states. Every new state, no matter how small, automatically comes with two senate seats, at least one house seat, and at least three electoral votes.
So, I take solid red states and split them into numerous smaller states. If we create 500 new red states out of 25 current red states, by splitting each into a little more than 20 states (and packing blue voters into a small number of new gerrymandered states), so now we have “North-Northeast North Dakota” and “Greater Cheyenne” as states (!!!), according to my arithmetic analysis with ChatGPT, we should have a basically permanent >3/4 majority in the Hoise, and far greater permanent supermajorities in the senate, the electoral college, and the state legislatures.
Once we have these gerrymandered supermajorities, we can edit the constitution at a whim, to make ourselves the only allowed party, make the president a supreme leader, etc.
I think Godel’s loophole probably exploited this or something close in the federal system and the process for state creation.
Comment #9 July 5th, 2026 at 1:53 pm
Dr. Cheryl Rofer at “Lawyers, Guns, and Money” has listed Jefferson’s (et al) complete Declaration, which includes a long list of grievances against the English King. It was surprising to me how many of those grievances resonate with current affairs: corruption of the legal system; onerous trade policies; and restriction of immigration and naturalization, to name a few.
Comment #10 July 5th, 2026 at 2:49 pm
Alex #7
Thanks for this link and read through Morgenstern’s recollection of the actual examination. The examiner, to his credit, realized he was outmatched by Gödel and didn’t pursue the proof.
Julian #8
You present a logical path for Republicans but actually any “red state” (ex extreme Northeast other than Maine) could be subdivided to reach this end.
https://brilliantmaps.com/us-county-vote-2016-2024/
For the Dems DC, Puerto Rico, Guam, and Virgin Islands might be beneficial targets but I don’t know enough about the politics in the US territories to say for sure.
I don’t know why the great divide between urban areas (and college dominated towns) vs rural areas exists but the results in recent elections have been stark. Biden carried 17% of US counties and Harris 15%. Obama carried 28% first election and 22% second election so the trend has been decidedly to even more polarization.
DC has been amazingly consistent and Harris received 90% of the vote there. I can’t imagine a major city with 90% agreement so my imagination apparently is not even sufficient to accommodate reality in this instance.
Comment #11 July 5th, 2026 at 2:51 pm
OhMyGoodness #9
any “red state” should read any “blue state”.
Comment #12 July 5th, 2026 at 5:13 pm
OhMyGoodness #10:
Easy, the Republican war on education has been much more effective in rural areas.
Comment #13 July 5th, 2026 at 6:51 pm
Happy 4th of July Scott! America is the greatest country on Earth. May Marco Rubio be elected President in 2028.
Comment #14 July 5th, 2026 at 7:28 pm
Raoul #12
Why do you believe that to be true?
Education is overseen at the state level and so why did Trump carry 33/58 of the counties in deepest of blue CA? Was it poor control of the state educational system by Dems (nearly 70% of the state legislature) so only urban schools provided a proper objective education while rural schools suffered from a propagandized Republican tainted education. The recent letter by CA college faculty requesting reinstatement of the SAT was due to the failings of the rural Republican tainted education and not the objective urban education?
Actually I agree that the US educational system is to blame for much the polarization but add that the K-12 US educational system is generally abysmal. My view is that the politicization of education starts with Universities passed down to K-12 “educators”. Personally I prefer high school graduates that can add (with carry even) than those that can’t but know the political narratives chapter and verse, albeit Dem of Republican.
Comment #15 July 5th, 2026 at 7:52 pm
Last time I was in the US I took my daughter to In and Out. The girl that took the money was high school aged and just making minimum wage money. She simply could not make change after I added some coins to my payment.
After a period of time I was a little bit testy (I won’t say rude). That was months ago and my daughter still reminds me that my behavior was not the best. Really this young girl was not entirely to blame and so any negativity directed toward her was uncalled for but who else is there to accept responsibility that a normal high school girl can’t make change. In retrospect I accept I acted poorly and wish I could apologize for any negativity that she felt.
Comment #16 July 5th, 2026 at 8:05 pm
Marco Rubio 2028 #13: No thanks, he’s a sycophant (and he has no chance anyway). I’d prefer Shapiro, Fetterman, or any other Democrat willing to stand up to the DSA.
Comment #17 July 5th, 2026 at 8:35 pm
Scott #16
> I’d prefer Shapiro, Fetterman, or any other Democrat willing to stand up to the DSA
Might as well hope for Mashiach ben David.
Comment #18 July 5th, 2026 at 9:12 pm
Vladimir #17: I will, categorically and as long as I live, never vote for either a MAGA candidate or a candidate who’s cool with the destruction of Israel. If that means I need to sit the 2028 election out, so be it.
Comment #19 July 6th, 2026 at 4:40 am
Scott#18
I understand the moral revulsion behind this position. I would never want to minimize what it means when a candidate treats the destruction of Israel — or the end of Jewish collective self-determination — as an acceptable outcome. That is not merely “criticism of Netanyahu” or “support for Palestinian rights”; it crosses a very serious line.
But I still think abstention would be a mistake if the actual choice is between such a Democrat and a MAGA candidate.
The reason is not that the first danger is imaginary. It is that the second danger attacks the institutional framework that makes it possible to resist all other dangers. In a functioning constitutional democracy, even appalling political views can be opposed, constrained, litigated, defeated in primaries, checked by Congress, courts, civil society, the press, and future elections. Extreme anti-Israel or antisemitic positions may influence discourse and policy, but they remain contestable.
By contrast, MAGA authoritarianism threatens the very machinery by which bad political actors are kept within limits. If the rule of law, electoral legitimacy, judicial independence, administrative neutrality, and peaceful transfers of power are degraded, then everyone becomes less safe — including Jews, including Israel’s supporters, including minorities, including political opponents.
So I would put it this way: voting for a Democrat with repugnant views on Israel would not mean endorsing those views. It might simply mean choosing the political terrain on which those views can still be fought. Abstaining, in a first-past-the-post system, risks helping the candidate most likely to destroy that terrain altogether.
I share the impulse not to choose between moral disasters. But when one side is hostile to liberal democracy itself, preserving the constitutional order has to come first — precisely because it is what allows us to keep fighting the other moral disaster afterward.
Comment #20 July 6th, 2026 at 8:38 am
f3et #19: I fully understand the concept of choosing the bad over the catastrophic. I’ve often done it myself, I don’t begrudge anyone else for doing it openly and honestly, and I wish that for the rest of my life, there will be choices that are merely bad such that I can continue doing it.
But signing a death warrant for American democracy, and signing a warrant for a second Holocaust of millions of Jews, happen to cross two of the very few deontological red lines that I have. I will never forgive those who pretended to be my friends and yet left me with those choices, if they indeed turn out to be my choices.
Comment #21 July 6th, 2026 at 8:44 am
Scott #18: I’m genuinely curious, what do you do if US finds itself at war with Israel? WIth current turbulence, it doesn’t seem totally impossible.
Comment #22 July 6th, 2026 at 9:12 am
Child King #21: That could happen only if at least one of the two had so abandoned its previous values that it was still itself only in name. So, I suppose I’d side with whichever one was still itself, and more generally, with the triumph of liberalism and the Enlightenment everywhere on earth. Same answer if another war were to break out between (for example) the US and UK, or the UK and France.
Comment #23 July 6th, 2026 at 10:14 am
Vladimir #17
Shapiro and Fetterman are his Keystone home boys. 🙂
Shapiro hasn’t been supportive of Fetterman I don’t believe so I still personally have questions about Shapiro.
Comment #24 July 6th, 2026 at 11:13 am
OhMyGoodness #23: Right, Shapiro and Fetterman have some sort of personal beef, which is weird and sad, as they’re arguably the two main standard-bearers of the Democratic Party as it used to exist. No matter, I’d vote for either (and not because they’re Pennsylvanians 🙂 )
Comment #25 July 6th, 2026 at 3:00 pm
Scott#20
I don’t think I disagree with the moral seriousness of either red line. I also would not ask anyone to regard the destruction of American democracy, or the destruction of Israel as a refuge for Jews, as just another policy disagreement.
Where I hesitate is with the metaphor of “signing” either warrant.
In a first-past-the-post election, abstention does not remove one from the causal structure of the choice. It may feel cleaner, but it can still help determine which warrant actually gets executed. If one candidate threatens the constitutional order itself, while the other holds morally repugnant views that would still have to pass through courts, Congress, public opposition, party politics, and future elections, then these are not symmetrical forms of complicity.
Voting for the latter would not mean forgiving them, trusting them, or accepting their views on Israel. It would mean choosing the institutional terrain on which they can still be fought. The whole point of preserving liberal democracy is that even people with appalling views remain constrained, contestable, and removable.
I completely understand blaming those who left you with such a choice. But if that choice really comes, the question will not be how to avoid moral contamination altogether. That option may not exist. The question will be which action makes the worst outcome less likely in the actual world.
Comment #26 July 6th, 2026 at 4:12 pm
f3et #25: In insisting on red lines, of course it helps that my vote has only a minuscule probability of changing the outcome, and also that even if the worst comes to pass, I’ll hopefully still have the option to flee the US, temporarily or permanently.
If you said I somehow had the actual power to choose between MAGA and DSA (but it had to be one of the two), I suppose I’d try to use that power to negotiate protections for the things I cared about before making my horrible choice.
Comment #27 July 6th, 2026 at 4:25 pm
Dear Dr. Aaronson , i am a indian housewife and yours is the only blog where are i get to read what a jewish person, for whom i can put a face to his name, is going through, his thoughts and his concerns and every single time i get disturbed beyond words and leave the blog half way. Hats off to you, your family and to all jews ,for having the capability of staying focused, greatly courageous and positive when the world is debating about ‘destruction of Israel’ (!!) and ‘holocaust’. For what its worth , in case you don’t have access to what ordinary educated hindus discuss or think, let me assure you that we love you. On all our whatsapp groups, everywhere , we all love you and are in awe and have greatest respect for jews. It should never come to this, and it never ever will, but remember India will welcome jews with openest arms if jews need, i swear. Also i don’t agree that you should be given hypothetical situations and asked to choose between USA and Israel.
Comment #28 July 6th, 2026 at 5:39 pm
I feel like we’re all avoiding the elephant in the room here. Americans are never going to repair their democracy when huge numbers of young men are angry, unstable, and miserable, because they can’t find sexual partners, and feel humiliated and stepped on because of it. This influences much of the “burn it down” mentality on the right.
Comment #29 July 6th, 2026 at 8:47 pm
Scott, if it does come down to MAGA vs DSA would you consider voting third-party?
Comment #30 July 6th, 2026 at 10:57 pm
OhMyGoodness #10
I cannot speak to what may or may not be the “truth,” about rural politics, but, I found the thesis that the increasing influence of large agribusiness playing a role to be a real possibility. One such opinion can be found at the link,
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/8F2DFFCAC301FDA0C49797ADAEBAC4A5/S0003055424000200a.pdf/explaining-rural-conservatism-political-consequences-of-technological-change-in-the-great-plains.pdf
Comment #31 July 7th, 2026 at 4:20 am
Dacyn #29: I guess, if (say) there were a third party that stood for all the standard normal things that the Democratic Party stood for in my childhood.
Comment #32 July 7th, 2026 at 8:55 am
Silas #27: Yes, I’m sure that that’s one factor, along with social media and gerrymandering and the housing crisis in major cities and everything else that’s gotten us to the dark place where we are.
You might recall that, in late 2014, before “President Trump” was on anyone’s lips, my approach was to try to host a wide-ranging, honest discussion of the incel problem on this blog with dozens of well-meaning men and women, searching for a better social equilibrium around dating—one that would tell shy young male nerds not only what they can’t and shouldn’t do to find partners but what they can and should. You might also recall that for this, I was simultaneously denounced by the left and ridiculed by the right.
It meant a lot to me, years later, to hear a few people who’d played a role in my public shaming apologize to me for it. I haven’t always done so well at seeing the future (eg, I was late to recognize what was happening with blockchains, and more consequentially, with generative AI). But the incel crisis is one case where I wish my forebodings had been less accurate.
Comment #33 July 7th, 2026 at 10:43 am
mls #30
Thank you for the link that I enjoyed reading through. I have a few non-specialist comments on the papers
“ that is, why the party of the rich, the Republican Party, thrives in comparatively poor and rural states“
I was surprised to see this statement in an academic paper. It is an oxymoron assuming “of the” refers to the voting population that supports a given party. To me this sounds more like a slogan than an academic statement.
The paper suggests a link between technological advances (I don’t understand why this is called a shock in the paper-needlessly dramatic) that allowed development of the Ogallala Aquifer for agricultural use. It then has limited explanatory value for states like Indiana, Kentucky, West Virgina, southern states etc etc that do not overlie this aquifer and have not changed method of irrigation. If you say that change in irrigation is only emblematic of technological change in agriculture and its impact on family farmers then this misses the trend to corporate farming (currently 13% of farmland surface area corporate and around 39% total owned by corporate plus third party investors including Bill Gates of course). This trend to corporate, or quasi-corporate, seems reasonable in principle since it should provide economies of scale.
Something pointed out that I hadn’t considered in general, though I was aware of specific instances, is that the same rural/urban divide is seen in the EU. When I think of The Netherlands I think of Amsterdam but have worked with people from more rural areas that were indeed much much more conservative than the mistaken stereotype I had about the Dutch (as all such stereotypes are applied to a large enough group).
Thanks again for the link and my comments above are just what came to mind while reading through.
I thought of a stress explanation-rural populations may be more satisfied with their niche in life. They are less stressed/anxious than typical urban populations and are unenthusiastic about change.
Urban dwellers tend to be more stressed and anxious and have the underlying feeling that something needs to change. If there was in fact change to their benefit they would still have the underlying anxious feeling that something needs to change. This is just my musings and presented without any supporting data. 🙂
Unrelated to my comments to mls-
With the usual comments here concerning fascists I thought of writing about Platner and his choice in tattoos. Nothing good would come of my comments so I won’t, just another idiot.
Comment #34 July 7th, 2026 at 10:50 am
Do you think I’m a bad person for voting for Trump, and continuing to support him?
Comment #35 July 7th, 2026 at 10:57 am
Scott,
So, what would you tell the young incel today who supports Trump because he’s angry?
Comment #36 July 7th, 2026 at 11:01 am
Thanks Scott for a level headed forwardly positive look back at America on the occasion of America 250.
Comment #37 July 7th, 2026 at 11:51 am
Trump voter #34: If you are a bad person, I think it probably has less to do with your voting for Trump than with your hounding bloggers over and over and over as though entitled to their time 😀
Comment #38 July 7th, 2026 at 11:54 am
Silas #35: I’d tell him that supporting Trump will do nothing whatsoever to solve his problem, but asking women out on dates might. And if upsetting radical feminists is a side benefit for him, then both options might do that equally… 😀
Comment #39 July 7th, 2026 at 11:55 am
I should have written above- should provide economies of scale but so long as insufficient concentration to allow oligarchic excess profit seeking.
Comment #40 July 7th, 2026 at 1:35 pm
mls #3
Here is the GDP data for Indiana and Agriculture is only about 1% of the state’s economy. The total agribusiness foot print is very small.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/593096/indiana-real-gdp-by-industry/
Comment #41 July 7th, 2026 at 2:55 pm
Scott 31: What about the Libertarian Party? It’s non-interventionist, but it isn’t explicitly anti-Zionist.
Comment #42 July 7th, 2026 at 3:04 pm
Dacyn #41: I guess I’d have to see who the candidate was! While I agree with a large fraction of the libertarians’ expressed principles, in the past their party has often been a magnet for conspiracy theorists and crackpots.
Comment #43 July 7th, 2026 at 6:02 pm
Scott #42: Fair enough.
Comment #44 July 7th, 2026 at 8:21 pm
OhMyGodness #33
I am glad you found the article interesting. I only selected that article as an example of an analysis I read a number of years ago. I, too, cannot claim any expertise on the subject matter. But, because of governmental responses to the Dust Bowl tragedies, farmers had, for many years, been grateful for New Deal initiatives. In so far as the shift in alliances had occurred gradually, a certain amount may be attributable to business activity.
As for Indiana agribusiness, it may grow:
https://eadn-wc01-3158345.nxedge.io/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Voters-in-33-counties-have-voted-to-separate-from-Illinois.png
And, while it is probably inadvisable for Illinois residents, I say good riddance.
For my entire life Illinois politics has been significantly polarized. Growing up in Chicago, I had always been painfully aware of Republican hatred of Democrats long before Newt Gingrich motivated national politicians to portray Democrats as enemies of the United States.
I am simply tired of adults behaving worse than children.
I hope our host’s optimism is warranted. I do not, however, share it.
For what it is worth, I often find your comments insightful.
Comment #45 July 7th, 2026 at 8:59 pm
Completely unrelated: I know that the optimal strategies for games of perfect information (like chess and go) are in PSPACE, and I’m pretty sure I understand the proof of that. What about games of imperfect and/or random information, like poker? Is anything known about what complexity class their optimal strategies are in?
Comment #46 July 8th, 2026 at 2:12 am
mls #44
Thank you so much for your comment. It is exceedingly rare that someone responds positively here about what I write.
Wow, I didn’t know about the Illinois secession efforts. As usual it looks like rural counties trying to separate from the voting power of a major urban area(s).
Chicago politics have always seemed particularly spirited (? call it) and of course led by the Boss himself, Richard Daly. There have been so many notable community organizers from Chicago starting with the archetype, Saul Alinsky. More recently Ayers and Obama are big names. In all honesty I am not sure what a community organizer does. I knew two brothers that were quite left wing and the older one was a lawyer that started and managed a renter’s rights organization in Chicago. Later his much younger brother managed it for a period. I imagine that’s the type of thing that community organizers do.
Anyway thanks for the links, I saw information that made me think about some issues and am actually flabbergasted about the secession efforts.
Comment #47 July 8th, 2026 at 10:07 am
OhMyGoodness #14:
you should get out in the real world more often. you will find that rural areas are in fact different. don’t know and don’t care how this fits into your political theorizing, but it is what’s out there.
Comment #48 July 8th, 2026 at 1:59 pm
Raul #47
The real world where Republican propagandists have infiltrated rural but not urban schools? Sorry but I’ll have to pass.
Comment #49 July 8th, 2026 at 2:09 pm
Scott #22: It seems the process of hollowing out is going full steam, in parallel. No need for a war between them. This article describes it very well: https://www.timesofisrael.com/a-plea-to-the-prime-minister-heed-the-lessons-of-our-history-in-this-land-and-pull-back-from-the-brink/
Comment #50 July 8th, 2026 at 7:18 pm
OhMyGoodness #46
“Wow, I didn’t know about the Illinois secession efforts. As usual it looks like rural counties trying to separate from the voting power of a major urban area(s).”
I do not wish to transform our host’s comment section into a history lesson about Illinois politics, but, polarization is (destructively) a 2-way street. The Chicago Reader is an overly-wordy (originally grassroots) publication that produced a short history to the internet:
“This was far from the first Illinois secession proposal. In 1925, the Chicago City Council passed a resolution in favor of forming the state of Chicago because rural legislators were refusing to reapportion the General Assembly to reflect the city’s growing population.”
https://chicagoreader.com/news/downstate-hate-a-history-of-the-bitter-nearly-200-year-rivalry-between-chicago-and-the-rest-of-illinois/
And, I clearly remember talk of urban seccession from my youth. I found the Reader article while searching for the contrary to your suggestion that rural secession talk would be “usual.”
It might be more “usual” in contemporary politics; I really cannot say.
What I believe to be the case is that persistent polarized politics presents real opportunities for ethically challenged individuals to profit from politics. The track record of corruption in Illinois (we have governors from both parties who have served time in jail) supports this supposition.
Decent people in Illinois can no longer rely upon federal authority as a curb to corruption. Of course, it is our own fault. We get our information over beers in sports bars instead of reading history books, and, we prefer our news to be flooded with shopping bargains rather than stories about what our politicians are actually doing. Then we vote for people who “talk like us.”
This is very different from 250 years ago when “Common Sense” was the most popular literature in North America.
Raoul Ohio #47
The last staunch defender of rural politics with whom I spoke used the expression “burn the cities” and declared that all of the drug problems afflicting rural areas has been exported from the cities. A simple fact check on the history of the homemade”crystal meth” crisis from DEA public records invalidates the latter claim (as does the early history of cocaine use in “the South”). I question the moral superiority of a rural ethic.
I love my country. As a child, many windows past which I walked has military stars for sons drafted to defend our freedoms. I respect the flag code. And, I want to be the kind of American that I learned to be by example in that bygone era.
I don’t appreciate being portrayed as an enemy of the United States. If you wish to share insights on rural politics to correct my misunderstandings, I am all ears.
Comment #51 July 9th, 2026 at 5:58 am
mls #50
Thanks for your notes about earlier secession movements in Illinois. I realized later that starting my timeline with Richard Daly it was imprudent and due to my ignorance of Chicago/Illinois politics prior to that. I read a funny story years ago that a Chicago alderman was shocked at the audacity of Blagojevich to sell a Senate seat compared to the accepted practice of selling a zoning exception.
Chicago is ranked currently the 57th largest city globally with an urban population of about 9 million. Around 7,000 years ago that was likely the entire global population. Surprisingly New York is widely considered the first city globally to reach 10 million and that in the mid 30’s.
On one hand humans are still breaking new ground as dense urban populations continue to increase to sizes unimaginable 10,000 years ago. In comparison to the evolutionary history of hominids this is a very brief period.
On the other hand for much of those 10 thousand yeas there have been urban like administrative centers and otherwise rural areas. My view is this arrangement worked well when the rural areas paid their tributes and all were tolerant of others’ beliefs and customs.
In the US this tolerance has been codified as law but in actual practice the tolerance has frayed and the belief that everyone must think as “l” do has flourished. It is to the point that beliefs arise that are demonstrably in conflict wth physical reality, but held by sizable segments of the population, are pursued to be codified as law to effectively criminalize the recognition of physical reality.
The internet is such a good technology to publicly label fellow citizens scum, racists, sexists, and the most favored-fascists without the tiresome burden of knowledge.
Comment #52 July 9th, 2026 at 8:09 am
“ What I believe to be the case is that persistent polarized politics presents real opportunities for ethically challenged individuals to profit from politics. The track record of corruption in Illinois (we have governors from both parties who have served time in jail) supports this supposition.”
As best I know the Founders envisioned citizen-politicians that were elected and served their country for a brief period of time and then returned to private life. My description of what we have now is generally a professional politician class that does quite well financially. Term limits would restore what was originally intended but the professional politician class would have to enact that into law and has no interest in voting Yea.
Considering US politicians as individuals I don’t see personal characteristics that would routinely result in large increases in personal wealth while in office. They aren’t the smartest nor the fastest and certainly not the most sincere but their office provides ample opportunities for personal aggrandizement.
The US political system controls more money than any organization in the history of mankind and ideally individuals above reproach would oversee those sums. In practice those sums strongly attract those that do hold their personal interests as highest priorities.
I have heard the opinion outside the US that yes goes something like this-Their leaders are corrupt but they have been in office a long time and accumulated great wealth. If a switch is made to new leaders then they must start from zero to achieve great wealth and so best to stay with old corrupt leaders to minimize losses due to corruption. This then is a practical argument against term limits. 🙂
Comment #53 July 9th, 2026 at 12:30 pm
Congratulations to all of us Americans here. Two-hundred and fifty years is a long time for a regime to survive.
From being a thoughtful critic of Trump and MAGA in 2016 (when Hillbilly Elegy was published) and 2020, Vance has become a ridiculous figure. His negative metamorphosis was signaled in 2022, when he ran for Senate in Ohio. He fell in with the New Tech Right, a collection of neo-monarchist wackos and would-be oligarchs. And now Tucker Carlson’s son is his chief of staff. Enough said. He’s unlikely to be The Successor, however. More likely is Rubio, which makes me feel somewhat better.
The most important thing about the Founders was their skeptical attitude about their own taking of power. They told themselves and other newly minted Americans to be skeptical about power and the people wielding it and, even more, the people craving it — while recognizing the need for public power to serve public ends.
The most important they said to future generations was, pace Jefferson’s ironic reference to the 1787 Constitutional Convention as being a collection of demigods (he didn’t attend and might have been expressing his envy), don’t worship us. We did the best we could — it’s now up to you.
Comment #54 July 9th, 2026 at 1:22 pm
The state of America is too fucking depressing.
On a lighter note, are you a cat person or a dog person?
Comment #55 July 9th, 2026 at 1:35 pm
Julian #54: Cat.
Comment #56 July 9th, 2026 at 1:56 pm
CM #53
You are even too kind to Vance. Remembering his condescending comments to Israel it is karma that he has proven that you can’t talk your way out of all problems. His poor judgement in fully expecting the impossible is demonstration he is unfit for national office let alone president. He has demonstrated further that an Ivy League law degree doesn’t necessarily bestow the ability to form sensible expectations.
This group apparently had no clue about the realities of Iran and the idea Donald could schmooze Hamas and Iran with the promise of Trump Towers demonstrates they all are terribly unfit for their positions. This is not a Party based statement but about rather their absolute, not relative, competence. I would make the same statement about Dems.
I don’t know enough about Rubio for me to determine what kind of person he is. He has been quiet and seemingly focused on being a “good soldier”. The current politician I have the best opinion of is Fetterman but know he would never be a nominee.
Comment #57 July 9th, 2026 at 2:07 pm
Happy 250th anniversary. Read Asimov and Silverberg’s “The Positronic Man” for the occasion.
Comment #58 July 11th, 2026 at 9:43 am
mls #44
About my comments concerning the relative novelty of mega-cities. I think it is the case that in most there is an element of sub-division by tribe. The Somalis have their own community, the Iranians, Vietnamese, etc. In ostensibly mega melting pots humans still tend to organize themselves on the basis of tribes.
Comment #59 July 11th, 2026 at 4:17 pm
Scott 32:
Who ridiculed you on the right?
Comment #60 July 11th, 2026 at 4:25 pm
Silas #59: Tons of right-wingers at the time called me a cuck, a eunuch, and whatever other emasculating terms they could think of. You can Google for it yourself. Even while feminists condemned me as a misogynist monster, the right-wingers found it contemptible that I was trying to find common ground with feminists.
Comment #61 July 11th, 2026 at 4:46 pm
I searched Google, and can’t find anything about anyone calling you a cuck. Why exactly were they calling you a cuck?
Comment #62 July 11th, 2026 at 6:47 pm
Silas #61: Uhh, googling my name and “eunuch” will bring up stuff. Maybe “cuck” is a more recent term of abuse. Sorry, I really don’t feel like revisiting this horrible episode any further. You’re on your own, if you’re even genuinely curious at all rather than a troll.
Comment #63 July 31st, 2026 at 7:33 am
@OhMyGoodness
Thank you for your replies. I had to step back for a while because my pessimism was clouding my thoughts. These are difficult matters and all of us reason from imperfect information.
Where you wrote,
“My description of what we have now is generally a professional politician class that does quite well financially.”
you might also consider a comparison between the annual incomes of government employees and the national median annual income. In some localities, non-governmental employees are essentially wage slaves to support the upper middle class lifestyles of government workers.
I do not say this critically. It is just a dynamic of the politics of taxation.
@ Dr. Aaronson
Cat people ought visit Jerry Coyne’s site, whyevolutionistrue.com , on Saturdays — I mean Caturdays.