Newsletter #338 — April 3, 2025
by Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess
Reader Suggested Links
Highlighting links suggested by our readers. Please send us links to things that you find useful.
- Israel / Hamas War
Why I and thousands of my fellow Gazans say Hamas’s tyranny must end — An urgent appeal from the citizens of Gaza who are trying desperately to free themselves from Hamas's brutal and catastrophic rule. - US Politics
The Impact Map — A timely and important effort to document the things that we are losing as DOGE prioritizes rapid budget cuts over a careful consideration of what needs cutting. - Progressive Left
There’s a New War Among the Liberal Intelligentsia — Another perspective on what is emerging as the left's big conflict — should it, or should it not, embrace the deep changes that would be required to pursue "abundance." - Education
Abandoning DEI won’t fix academia’s left-leaning problem — For DEI's opponents and supporters, a reminder that this is not just a debate over DEI funding, it is a much more fundamental debate about what we mean by "justice" and how we view our common history. - US Politics
Democrats confront the wrath of their voters, just as Republicans have — Yet another big conflict to think about — the conflict between the Democratic base that wants its leaders to more vigorously oppose the Trump onslaught and the party's more cautious leadership. - Immigration
Immigrants and Freedom of Speech — A thoughtful exploration of the complex and legally murky nature of free speech rights for noncitizens. - Israel / Hamas War
Here Is the Real Route to Freeing Palestinians — An update on what seems to us to be the most promising strategy for freeing the Palestinian people -- disempowering Hamas.
Colleague Activities
Highlighting things that our conflict and peacebuilding colleagues are doing that contribute to efforts to address the hyper-polarization problem.
- Constructively Addressing Complex Issues
But what if their side is actually wrong? — Jonathan Stray shares six arguments for "intelligent bothsidesism." - US Politics
Jay's Notes: Trump’s tried and true political strategy will fail him on tariffs — Executive Director of More in Common, Jason Mangone, shares new data on how Americans are feeling about President Trump's proposed tariffs. Spoiler: they don't like them. - Peacebuilding
AfP Calls on the U.S. to Robustly Support Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding Programs and Not Shut Down the U.S. Institute of Peace — The Alliance for Peace's statement about Trump and DOGE's actions against the United States Institute of Peace. - World Order
Exceptionalism and Rules-based Order: From Biden to Trump — A report from the Toda Peace Institute examining American exceptionalism and President Trump’s vision for the U.S. in the global world order. - Immigration
Issue Brief: Mapping the Rise in Immigration-Related Demonstrations in Early 2025 — A report on the widespread pushback against Trump's deportation initiatives, from Princeton University's Bridging Divides Initiative. - Education
Why the Events at Columbia University Will Have Profound Chilling Effects — The United States has a long history of trying to silence speech. What’s happening now is different—and dangerous, write Nathan Brown and Zaha Hassan from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. - Theories of Change
A Matter of Survival — Both a roadmap and a rallying cry, this report from the Kairos Center reveals how survival organizing can transform into a powerful movement for systemic change. - Theories of Change
The Promise of Co-Design — Co-design is a process that guides a group of people through various iterations of coming together to create something. This something might be a product, an activity, a project, or a service - Networking
The SHIFT Action Lab — The SHIFT Action Lab is a collective for learning and action on democracy. It has been co-designed with practitioners who hold a desire to collaborate across the typically siloed fields of bridging, organizing, and governance.
News and Opinion
From around the web, more insight into the nature of our conflict problems, limits of business-as-usual thinking, and things people are doing to try to make things better. (Formerly, Beyond Intractability in Context.)
- US Politics
New Insights on Why Harris Lost—and Why Democrats Are in Such a Hole — A must-read article with solid, eye-opening statistics that can help Democrats understand the degree to which their business-as-usual approach to politics has failed. - Superpower Conflict
What Rusting Russian Tanks Can Teach Us About the Pete Hegseth Group Chat — In the context of Trump and Ukraine, a perceptive and important essay about the dangers posed by national leaders who surround themselves with people who will only tell them what they want to hear. - US Politics
What Does the New Right Want? — A substantial effort to really try to understand the interests that the Trump administration is seeking to advance. - US Politics
Trump Is About to Bet the Economy on a Theory That Makes No Sense — As the US embarks on radical effort to restructure global trade relationships, a reminder that policies only achieve their intended result when they are based on an accurate understanding of the way the system works. - Education
Government and universities battle in a contest of bad behavior — A thoughtful critique of the theories of change that Trump is following in his attempt to transform universities and that universities are using to resist those efforts. - Superpower Conflict
I Am the Turkish President’s Main Challenger. I Was Arrested. — From a leading candidate in Turkey's next presidential election, a personal account about how democracy can quickly disappear. - Authoritarianism
Europe Turns a Blind Eye to Erdogan’s Crackdown Because It Needs Turkey — Evidence that, as we enter a new Cold War, democracies may again feel geopolitical pressure to embrace authoritarians. - Psychological Complexity
How Framing Distorts Journalism and Empowers Authoritarians — From neuropsychological perspective, an effort to explain how our frames affect the way we think and how they can be distorted by bad reporting and manipulated by unscrupulous political figures. - Saving Democracy
Disqualification Is Not a Democratic Process — Serious questions about the controversial (and suspect) way in which Marine Le Pen was removed as a candidate for the French presidency. - Authoritarianism
If and when you live in a dictatorship, how will you know? — As we continue to agonize over whether or not we are becoming an authoritarian society, the timely essay that helps us understand what dictatorship really looks like. - Left / Right Conflict
Can Democrats Promote an Abundance Agenda? — As "abundance" emerges as a possible basis for a more broadly embraced political movement, hard questions about whether Democrats could make the big changes that pursuing such a strategy would require. - Runaway Escalation
What We Get Wrong About Each Other: Collateral Contempt — Collateral contempt occurs when traditionally non-partisan communities and institutions are caught in the crossfire of partisan animosity. Who is affected by this phenomenon, and what should we do about it? - Hate Mongering
Yuval Levin: You Can’t Run Government Through Retribution — Another perspective on the conflict between Trump's drive for retribution and the imperatives of governance. - Left / Right Conflict
Blue states don't build. Red states do. — For Democrats, one key to re-earning the public's trust is to look honestly at things that Republicans appear to be doing better and consider making changes.
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About the MBI Newsletters
Two or three times a week, Guy and Heidi Burgess, the BI Directors, share some of our thoughts on political hyper-polarization and related topics. We also share essays from our colleagues and other contributors, and every week or so, we devote one newsletter to annotated links to outside readings that we found particularly useful relating to U.S. hyper-polarization, threats to peace (and actual violence) in other countries, and related topics of interest. Each Newsletter is posted on BI, and sent out by email through Substack to subscribers. You can sign up to receive your copy here and find the latest newsletter here or on our BI Newsletter page, which also provides access to all the past newsletters, going back to 2017.
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