As natural, healthy tribes—family, friends, workplace, and neighborhood—have crumbled, we’ve turned to anti-tribes: an us-versus-them politics and a rage-fueled media complex that exploits our divisions for clicks. Reclaiming the American idea against all this means returning to the beginning: to our basic commitment to the inexhaustible, inviolable dignity of every person, and to our recognition that an effective and enduring politics can only be built atop this fundamental conviction.
