1/7 @nytdavidbrooks writes brilliantly today about the crumbling of our capacity to see and promote the common good. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/02/opinion/coronavirus-july-4.html

2/7 Brooks blames individualism, atomization, the erosion of our national capacity to think and act in terms of the totality and the social good. I’m with Brooks 100%. And I would add:

3/7 The capacity to act for the social whole is a muscle, not a psychology or faith. A capacity that needs to be developed & worked. Our political institutions don’t do that. They engineer division & teach “our differences make us enemies.” @katherinegehl @MichaelEPorter

4/7 Our electoral process should be our gym, track & swimming pool, a cultural space for civic growth, healing, and society-enhancing competition. Instead it is thunderdome. Outcomes are all that matter. Not the needed growth of the American people. @desmondmeade

5/7 I’m not arguing for niceness, for civility, for some genteel illusion of the past. No. Our rough-and-tumble democracy, where we the people learned to act collectively on a grand scale, has been misshapen by party politics. @JohnArnoldFndtn

6/7 The crumbling Brooks describes is not all negative. The American people are seeing how our political institutions are not up to the task. It’s on vivid display. We don’t yet know exactly what to do. But it's on display. @StandUpRepublic @CivicsUnplugged @Schwarzenegger

7/7 Outcomes are not all that matter. Democracy that doesn’t involve the development of people participating is not democracy. Brooks is right, our capacity to act collectively has eroded. Our democratic institutions have been hijacked. Time to get them back. @KTeaFahey