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We Still Are America Though. We're Still A Country That Is A Country Of Social Mobility. We're Still A Country Of Immigrants. We're Still A Country With Common Ancestors. And Reviving The Civics Of America And The Idea That We're Going To Be United, At Least Not Right Now, But In Some Common Future, And Talking In That Hopeful Way That Martin Luther King Did, That Abraham Lincoln Did, Seems To Me That's The Way.

-David Brooks

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We Still Are America

David Brooks

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We Still Are America Though. We're Still A Country That Is A Country Of Social Mobility. We're Still A Country Of Immigrants. We're Still A Country With Common Ancestors. And Reviving The Civics Of America And The Idea That We're Going To Be United, At Least Not Right Now, But In Some Common Future, And Talking In That Hopeful Way That Martin Luther King Did, That Abraham Lincoln Did, Seems To Me That's The Way.

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The Fact That There Could Be An Isis West Bank, The Fact That The Palestinian Government In Gaza Doesn't Even Acknowledge Israel's Right To Exist, The Fact Of Constant Terror, Delegitimization Campaigns In The Palestinian Schools, These Are All Much Bigger Facts. And For The Barack Obama Administration To Focus On This One Fact, Almost, Not To The Expense, But To Diminish Some Of The Others Which Are Much More Important, Is To Cast All The Blame On Israel And To Take The U.n. Policy Toward Israel, Which Has Been Longstanding, And Sort Of Surrender To It.

The Roots Of Great Innovation Are Never Just In The Technology Itself. They Are Always In The Wider Historical Context. They Require New Ways Of Seeing. As Einstein Put It, 'the Significant Problems We Face Cannot Be Solved At The Same Level Of Thinking We Were At When We Created Them.'

Putin's An Egomaniac, So There Are Two Ways He Can Process His Ego Mania. He Can Say, "oh, I Stood Up To The U.s.," Or, "hey, I'm Essential To The World Order."

For Us Going Forward, It's To Not Reverse The Dynamism Of American Society And The Diversity. It's To Pay Attention To The People Who Are Being Ruined By It, And So This Doesn't Happen Again.

Populists Hate Journalists, They Hate Teachers, They Hate Lawyers, But They Tend To Like Rich People. There's Something Deeply Consistent.

I'm A Little Uncomfortable With The Idea Of Judges Overruling Presidents On National Security Matters.

People Generally Don't Suffer High Rates Of Ptsd After Natural Disasters. Instead, People Suffer From Ptsd After Moral Atrocities. Soldiers Who've Endured The Depraved World Of Combat Experience Their Own Symptoms. Trauma Is An Expulsive Cataclysm Of The Soul.

I Just Think, Realistically, There's A Lot Of Room Outside The Trump Populist Right And The Bernie-sanders-elizabeth-warren Populist Left. There Are A Lot Of Us Who Believe In Open Trade, Open Borders, A Dynamic Forward-looking Economy, Not A Nostalgic Economy, But Do Want To Provide A Significant Level Of Social Service Or Sort Of Economic Milton Friedman Foreign Policy, Ronald Reagan Domestic Policy, Franklin Roosevelt. And There's A Lot Of Room In The Center.

There Was This Famous Clash Of Civilization Thesis From Samuel Huntington, A Political Theorist. And The Idea Was That Western Civilization Is At War With Islam And Maybe Some Of The Other Civilizations Around The World. And I Don't Agree With That. But I Do Think There Is Such A Thing As Western Civilization. I Think It Starts With The Greeks And The Romans. Then It Goes Through The Enlightenment - Or The Reformation, The Enlightenment. It Goes Through The Scientific Age. And It Somewhat Defines Some Of The Cultures And Mores Of Europe And North America And Some Other Countries.

We Don't Have The Choice To Control Our Emotions, But We Do Have The Power To Educate Our Emotions. And We Do That Through Literature And Through Art And Music To Give Ourselves A Repertoire Of Emotional Experiences.

It's The Rising Tide Of Enmity In The Country, Donald Trump Attacking Judges, Donald Trump Attacking John Mccain, Senator [richard] Blumenthal, The Town Halls, The Riots In Berkeley. You Have Got The Incivility On The Floor Of The United States Senate. You Have Got Just A Rising Tide, Every Single Story.

You Figure Out, What Is The Crucial Issue Facing The Country Right Now? And For Trump, It Was That The Global Economy And The International World Order Were Failing Regular People.

Bibi Netanyahu, Froze The Settlements And Offered To Go Toward A Two-state Solution. The Palestinians Didn't Take Him Up On It. Historically, We Have Had A Series Of These Offers. And The Settlements Themselves Are Not The Keystone Here. It Seems To Me Myopic And Bizarre That At The Last Moment, The Barack Obama Administration Would Surrender The Whole Balanced Array Of Policies That Are Obstacles To Peace And Focus On The One That Is Most Detrimental To Israel.

With The Case Of [mike] Pence, Giving A Little Aurora Of Likability To A Candidate, A Lead Candidate Who's A Little Lacking In That Department.

Barack Obama Won Such A Big Electoral Mandate Because A Lot Of People Thought He Was - Transcended Partisan And Ideological Barriers And Was Going To Put Aside The Old Debates. So, He Was Able To Get A Lot Of Moderates And A Lot Of Independents.

I'm A Pundit. I'm, Like, Paid To Be A Narcissistic Blowhard And Be In Front Of The Camera.

Basically, Less Educated Or High School-educated Whites Are Going To Donald Trump. It Doesn't Matter What The Guy Does. And College-educated Going To Hillary Clinton.

I Was Really Fortunate That I Went To A High School Where We Actually Had A Film Theory Program.

Liberals Lost Touch With Working-class Americans Because They Never Had To Have A Conversation About Values With Those Voters; They Could Just Rely On The Courts To Impose Their Views.

My Suv, Assuming Hummer Comes Out With A Model For Those Who Find The Current Ones Too Cramped, Will Look Something Like The Louisiana Superdome On Wheels. It'll Guzzle So Much Gas As I Walk Out To My Driveway There Will Be Squads Of Saudi Princes Gaping And Applauding. It'll Come, When I Buy It, With Little Hondas And Mazdas Already Embedded In The Front Grillwork.

For The Republican Convention, I Think Of Trump's Speech And Sort Of The Darkness, The Fear Of Crime, The Need For A Strong Arm Really, And So That One Core Theme.

When You Get A Big Crisis, Everyone Wants Somebody With Some Experience And Some Credibility.

I Agree With The Idea Of Cutting [budget], But It Should All Be Coming Out Of Entitlements For The Affluent And Not Out Of Domestic Discretionary, Which Is Welfare, Education, All The Stuff The Government Does, Parks, Fbi, And It Shouldn't Be Coming Out Of Medicaid.

Sometimes, You Go - You Achieve A Few Things In Life. I Have Achieved More Career Success Than I Ever Experienced Or That I Ever Thought. And I Just Realized, It Doesn't Make You Happy. It's An Elemental Truth. It's So True.

Democrats In Environmental Agencies Tend To Be More Sensitive To Environmental Harm. And Republicans Tend To Be More Sensitive To Business Harm.

The Incumbents Just Have A Ton More Money Because They Have Rigged The System To Help Themselves, Because They Have These Networks Of Small Donors. Meanwhile, The Amount Of People, The Incumbents Being Reelected Has Just Been - That Has Been Going Up And Up And Up.

Fundamentalism Is Still On The March.

Your Dvd Collection Is Organized, And So Is Your Walk-in Closet. Your Car Is Clean And Vacuumed, Your Frequently Dialed Numbers Are Programmed Into Your Cordless Phone, Your Telephone Plan Is Suited To Your Needs, And Your Various Gizmos Interact Without Conflict. Your Spouse Is Athletic, Your Kids Are Bright, Your Job Is Rewarding, Your Promotions Are Inevitable, Everywhere You Need To Be Comes With Its Own Accessible Parking. You Look Great In Casual Slacks.

I Sort Of Feel We Have To Owe Some Respect To The Process And Owe Some Respect To The Electorate And The People Who Voted Donald Trump, On The Assumption That They Have Something To Teach Us.

The Gun Becomes This Psychological Totem, This Thing Of Who I Am. And It's Almost As If Using The Gun Is Going To Be The Thing That's Going To Be My Expression Of How I Make A Difference In The World.

It's Impossible For One Person To Think Of Everything.

What Family You Were Born Into Matters So Much More Than It Did Before In A Perverse Way.

If You Grow Up In A Home Where Actions Don't Lead To Predictable Consequences, You Don't Develop Strategies To Control Your Impulses.

Putin Has Been - And With A Lot Of The Groups, The Conservative Groups, The More Extreme Conservative Groups That Underlie Trump, He's A Bit Of A Hero Because He Speaks For Traditional Values, He's Against The Global Institutions.

The Moral Foundation Of The Society, The Way We Interact With Each Other Is More Fundamental Than The Supreme Court.

I've Observed A Few Things About The Few Really Great People I've Had A Chance To Meet And Cover...they Need To Be Around People. You And I Require Sleep. They Require People.

Funny Graduation

No Matter Where You Are On Politics, I Think It Is Wonderful To See Candidates Funding Campaigns Not By Talking To A Very Small Number Of Very Rich People, But By Reaching Out To A Very Large Number Of Citizens.

America Has An Important Role To Play As The World Leader In Creating A Global Order, Free Trade, Free Waterways, Free Commerce, Free Movement Of People. That Happens Because Of U.s. Military Might.

Highly Educated Young People Are Tutored, Taught And Monitored In All Aspects Of Their Lives, Except The Most Important, Which Is Character Building. When It Comes To This, Most Universities Leave Them Alone.

It's A Completely Irrational Decision To Drop Out Of School.

We Live In A Culture That Encourages Us To Be Big About Ourselves, And I Think The Starting Point Of Trying To Build Inner Goodness Is To Be A Little Bit Smaller About Yourself.

Marital Happiness Is Far More Important Than Anything Else In Determining Personal Well-being.

I Want To Try To Make Big Films That Hopefully Connect With People.

For The Democrats, They're Trying To Avoid Having The Sanders-clinton Debate Over And Over Again. But, To Some Degree, They're Sentenced To That Debate. Clinton Is Much More Embracing Of The Global Economy And The International World Order. Sanders And Warren Are Much Less So. And They Have Got To Figure Out Which Side The Party Is On, If They're Going To Have A Clear Message. I Think This Is Probably One You Probably Can't Straddle.

If We're In Some Sort Of Hobbesian State Of Nature, Where You Just Want A Strong Man Who Has No Compassion Donald Trump Is Going To Do A Little Better. So, We Will Figure Out What Game We're Playing.

The Idea That When You Correct A Fact, You Erase That Fact From People's Memories Is The Reverse Of The Truth. When You Correct A Fact, What You Do Is You Further Lodge That Fact Into People's Minds, And They Remember The Error.

We Are All Fundamentally Equal Souls, And If You Make A Zillion Dollars, You're Not Any Better Than Anybody Else Spiritually. You're Still An Equal Soul.

People Want Reality That Tells Them How Right They Are All The Time.

The More Attention Hillary Clinton Gives To The Country, The Less People Seem To Like Her.

Donald Trump's World View Is That It's A Dangerous, Miserable Place, People Are Out To Get Him, And He Needs To Strike Them First.

I Have Come To Think We Have To Treat Donald Trump's Tweets Like Snapchat. It's Just Something That Is Going To Go Away. And It Flies Out Of Some Region Of His Brain And It Goes Out Into The Ether. And Usually It's On The Realm Of Media.

Politics Really Is A Team Sport. You Really Have To Work The Whole System To Get Somewhere Down The Road.

I've Come To Think That Flourishing Consists Of Putting Yourself In Situations In Which You Lose Self-consciousness And Become Fused With Other People, Experiences, Or Tasks.

We Actually Have To Have A Government. We Have To Have People Confirmed And Put Into Office.

If Donald Trump Wants To Fire Somebody For Not Getting Obamacare Repealed, He Should Fire Himself.

I Can't Imagine That Being In The Trump Cabinet Will Be A Very Important Job. I Do Think This Will Be A White House-run Administration With A Teeny-tiny Group Of People Surrounding Him, Including His Family Maybe.

[betsy Devos] Is Quite A Smart Person, Capable, Pretty Sophisticated In Subtle Thought. And So To Me, That Puts Her In The Realm Of Policy. But We're In A Climate Where, As Today, She Tries To Visit A School, And She Can't Even Do That Because Protesters Are Blocking That.

It's Almost Inherent, But I'm A Massive Stanley Kubrick Fan. I'm A Big Admirer Of What Guys Like Christopher Nolan Have Been Able To Do. For Me, To Be Able To Try To Make Big Films That Reach A Lot Of People, And That Hopefully Have Something To Say, Is A Lofty Goal, But That's My Goal.

The Corruption Will Come Back To Haunt The Trump Administration. But Mostly, It'll Come Back To Haunt The American Economy, As Companies Decide They Can Make Money By Rent-seeking, By Getting Money From Government Rather Than Earning It The Old-fashioned Way.

I Think Mitch Daniels, The Former Governor Of Indiana Was A Case Of That, Who Was An Outstanding Administrator.

The Brain Is Not The Mind. It Is Probably Impossible To Look At A Map Of Brain Activity And Predict Or Even Understand The Emotions, Reactions, Hopes And Desires Of The Mind.

The Madman Theory Is That You Can Be A Successful Deterrer If You - If They Think You Could Be Crazy. And So I Think It Can Be Very Effective, So Long As You're Not Actually Crazy.

Freedom Without Structure Is Its Own Slavery.

A Lot Of People Think Barack Obama Should Have Responded To The Russian Hacking Of The U.s. Elections Weeks Ago, Months Ago. So These Happened On His Watch. There's Nothing Wrong With Him Dealing With It.

The People Who Really Have Character Make Deep, Unshakable Connections To Something Outside Themselves.

Donald Trump Didn't Emerge From The Orthodoxy Of The Republican Party. And So There's Going To Be Bigger Differences Than Normal.

Often, I Go And See Films Where I Can See The Beats Coming. So, If I Read Something Where I Don't See The Beats Coming And It Takes Me Somewhere Unexpected, That's A Great Thing To Build Upon.

It's Hard For Parents Just To Measure Schools.

Donald Trump Has A Pre-modern Monarchic Family Structure. His Business Is A Monarchy With Family Members All Around. His Administration Is A Monarchy With Family Members All Around.

With A Normal President Like President [barack] Obama, He Says A Word, And That's Because There Has Been Some Thought That He's Done And There Had Been Policy Papers And There's Been Aides And There's Been Advisers And Then There Is A Connection To An Actual Set Of Policies. And So, The Words Like Have Roots Into Actual Stuff.

It's Important For Presidents To Emotionally Connect, With The Country In Times Of Crisis, But Also With People In Washington. If You Can't Emotionally Connect - And [barack] Obama Is Not The Greatest, But He Can At Least Do It - Then People Won't Be With You When The Times Are Hard.

You Have Got To Be Loyal To People Beneath You.

It's Hard To Imagine A Party That Is Not Corrupted By Hatred.

The Three People Who Are Most Often Talked About With Hillary Clinton, Whether It's Tim Kaine Or Vilsack Or Cory Booker, They Are Three Extremely Nice People.

We Still Are America Though. We're Still A Country That Is A Country Of Social Mobility. We're Still A Country Of Immigrants. We're Still A Country With Common Ancestors. And Reviving The Civics Of America And The Idea That We're Going To Be United, At Least Not Right Now, But In Some Common Future, And Talking In That Hopeful Way That Martin Luther King Did, That Abraham Lincoln Did, Seems To Me That's The Way.

I Do Think Donald Trump Is A Fundamentally Unstabilizing Force And That The People Who Swore To Uphold The Constitution Are Going To Have To Take Some Measures At Some Point.

The Politics Is Broken Up And Down. And Trump May Emerge From A Reality Tv World That Is Much More Powerful Than We Think. And There Is The Prospect That This Is Where We Are, Which Is An Horrific Thought.

On The [andrew] Puzder Point, I Do Agree There Has Been A Double Standard.

Double Standard

There Will Just Always Be A Distance Between You And The People Around You. Now, [hillary Clinton] Can Clearly Emotionally Connect With Her Intimates Within The Zone Of Trust. It's Just The Wall Outside The Zone Of Trust Is So Impermeable.

Trade Agreements Are A Net Benefit For The World, And A Net Benefit For Our Foreign Policy, And In The Long Run, Given The Dislocations, Are A Net Benefit For Us, Too.

Populists Love Rich People. They Just Hate Professionals.

When You're Running For President, You're A Guest In The Living Room For Four Years. And If People Don't Think You're Going To Be Around The Living Room As A Pleasant Experience, They're Not Going To Vote For You Even If They Agree With You.

The Key Factor Separating Geniuses From The Merely Accomplished Is Not A Divine Spark. It's Not I.q., A Generally Bad Predictor Of Success, Even In Realms Like Chess. Instead, It's Deliberate Practice. Top Performers Spend More Hours (many More Hours) Rigorously Practicing Their Craft.

I Would Have Swapped Out Donald Trump's Frontal Cortex For Somebody Else's For A Little More Self-control.

The Government Is Supposed To Provide A Level Playing Field Where People Can Compete Fairly. It's Not Supposed To Cut Deals With One Company Or Another To Do So.

I Think The Democrats Are Right To Protest, But I Don't Think Jeff Sessions Is So Far Out Of The Range Of Normalcy That He Shouldn't Be Confirmed.

I Don't Think The Palestinians Are In This Position They're In, Divided With Hamas And The P.a., Unwilling To Allow - Or Recognize Israel As A Jewish State.

Economists Sometimes Do Try To Reduce Behavior To Law-like Predictability. But People Respond Differently To Different Primes, To Different Contexts Even From One Moment To The Next. We Possess Multiple Selves That Are Aroused By Different Circumstances.

The Crossroads Where Government Meets Enterprise Can Be An Exciting Crossroads. It Can Also Be A Corrupt Crossroads. It Requires Moral Rectitude To Separate Public Service From Private Gain.

I Wasn't Born With A Tie Or With Mark Shields Stapled To My Left Hip. I Have Another Life.

When Your Institution Is Under Assault, You're Feeling Like The Weight Is On It And The History Might Be Flowing Away, Don't Turn Inward, Go Outward.

As For Multimillionaires [in Donald Trump's Administration], A Lot Of Us Hope To Be A Multimillionaire Some Day. Again, Spotty Records, But It Seems To Be Not Without The Range.

Research By Donald A. Redelmeier And Sheldon M. Singh Has Found That, On Average, Oscar Winners Live Nearly Four Years Longer Than Nominees That Don't Win.

People Generally Overestimate How Distinct Their Lives Are, So The Commonalities Seemed To Them Like A Series Of Miracles.

We Shouldn't Just Allow Gay Marriage. We Should Insist On Gay Marriage. We Should Regard It As Scandalous That Two People Could Claim To Love Each Other And Not Want To Sanctify Their Love With Marriage And Fidelity.

Creativity Is Not A Solitary Process. It Happens Within Networks... When Talented People Get Together, When Idea Systems And Mentalities Merge.

The Republican Party Has Become An Ethnic Nationalist Party.

Republican Party

We Are Primarily The Products Of Thinking That Happens Below The Level Of Awareness.

Personally, I Think Mitt Romney Would Be A Great Secretary Of State.

Israel Is A Country Of Six Million People. They Need The U.s. It Used To Be Bipartisan On Israeli Politics. You Never Messed With That Relationship. The Fact That [ Benjamin] Netanyahu Is Willing To Do That, I Thought Would Horrify Voters More Than It Turned Out It Did.

I Take A Benign View Of Digital Connectedness. I Notice In Most Young People's Lives, Facebook And Such Doesn't Replace Normal Dating Or Hanging Out, It Just Facilitates It.

It Is Especially Painful When Narcissists Suffer Memory Loss Because They Are Losing Parts Of The Person They Love Most.

I Do Think Trying To Live Each Day As A Bunch Of Moral Occasions, Did I Live Up To What I Would Hope, And, If I Didn't, What Can I Do Tomorrow To Be A Little Better, I Do Think We Can Improve. We Get Better At Life As We Get Older.

I Think We Are All Disgusted By The Way George W. Bush's Administration Has Allowed Honesty And Candor To Seep Into The Genteel World Of International Affairs.

Bragging About What A Good Deal You Got Is One Of The Many Great Art Forms That My People, The Jews, Have Introduced To American Culture.

If You Know That Most Processing Is Below The Level Of Awareness, You Learn The Value Of Sleep. You're Brain Is Working On The Problem Anyway.

The Technology's Going To Change, But What People Want To Read Is Going To Be Basically The Same.

[donald Trump] Has Shifted - President [barack] Obama Has Shifted American Policy In A Much More Critical Way In Israel With The Settlements Than The Previous Presidents.

Putin Is Someone Who Has Been Undermining The Norms Of What We Consider The World Order Since He Got Into Power And In Increasing Success.

When A President Speaks That Usually Means A Lot.

The Idea That Russia Felt Emboldened And Apparently Fearless To Go Into Our Election And Manipulate Our Own Election Process, Whether Successfully Or Not, Is A Sign That They Are Outside The Norms Of Normal Society.

Election Process

We Have An International System. We All Profit From It. Trade Profits From It. Peace. We Can Travel Around The World Because Of It. And Part Of That System Is Certain Ideas, The Certain Ideas You Can't Invade Other Countries For No Reason. You Can't Commit Genocide. You Can't - Rogue Regimes Can't Have Nuclear Weapons, And You Can't Gas Your Own People.

The Point Of Being A Teacher Is To Do More Than Impart Facts, It's To Shape The Way Students Perceive The World, To Help A Student Absorb The Rules Of A Discipline. The Teachers Who Do That Get Remembered.

I Am Not A Jew For Jesus But I Am Definitely A Jew For Christmas. Christmas Is One Of The Best Things You Christians Have Given Us, Along With Mac And Cheese, Bono, Croquet And Politeness.

I'm Not The Most Emotionally Attuned Guy In The World. My Wife Says That Me Writing About Emotion Is Like Gandhi Writing About Gluttony.

If We Are Going To Stop Wars On This Earth, We Are Going To Have To Make War On Hunger Our Number One Priority.

If I Were Donald Trump, I Would Definitely Not Pick Mitt Romney Because It's Very Easy For Mitt Romney To Have Have A Separate Foreign Policy Operatus In The State Department That Would Run A Dissenting Foreign Policy From The White House Foreign Policy. There, I Think The Populist America-first Foreign Policy Of Donald Trump Does Run Against A Potential Rival.

I'm Beginning To Think [ted] Cruz Had A Good Convention, That If [donald] Trump Goes Down, Cruz Is Pretty Well Positioned To Be The Republican Major Figure In Four, Six Or Even Within Two Years.

I Wouldn't Say Philosophy And Theology Are Dead. Brain Science Doesn't Invent New Philosophies But It Helps Remind Us Which Of Our Existing Philosophies Are More True.

If There Is A Series Of Attacks Like That Or, God Forbid, If Isis Is Really Sending Soldiers Across Europe And Maybe Across The World For A Barrage Of These Things, Then The Political Climate Is Revolutionized Here. And Maybe The [donald] Trump Speech Will Look Like A Precursor To A Climate That We're All About To Walk Into.

Everyone Is Dividing Based On Demographic Categories.

People Who Give Money In Large Amount In Politics Are Basically Not Altruistic.

Bill Clinton Pandered By Telling You What You Wanted To Hear. John Kerry Panders By Never Telling You What You Don't Want To Hear. This Is Negative Pandering; He Talks A Lot Without Really Ruling Anything Out So You Can Draw Your Own Conclusions.....kerry Has Been Talking For Years, And Yet Such Is The Thicket Of His Verbiage That He Has Achieved Almost Complete Strategic Ambiguity.

This Death Cult Has No Reason And Is Beyond Negotiation. This Is What Makes It So Frightening. This Is What Causes So Many To Engage In A Sort Of Mental Diversion. They Don't Want To Confront This Horror. So They Rush Off In Search Of More Comprehensible Things To Hate.

People Used To Complain That Selling A President Was Like Selling A Bar Of Soap. But When You Buy Soap, At Least You Get The Soap. In This Campaign, You Just Get Two Guys Telling You They Really Value Cleanliness.

Certainly, The Country Can't Have Two Presidents At Once, So The Tradition Has Been To Hang Back If You're The President-elect And Wait For Your Time In Office. [donald] Trump Is Not A Hang-back Kind Of Guy.

I Do Think Hillary Clinton Should Have Pivoted And Say, I Am Change, I Am Change, Because People Do Want Some Change.

Trump Has Picked The More Extreme Versions Of All Republicans So Far, The More Aggressive. And I Think The Thing To Watch Out For Is, I Could Totally Paint A Scenario Where Trump Runs An Authoritarian Regime. I Can Totally Paint A Scenario Where He Has No Control Over His Own Government.

There Are No Free And Democratic And Wealthy Countries In The World That Have Us Rate Of Gun Violence. We Have To Worry About Loners And Alienated People. We Have To Do Better On Mental Health.

The Ugliness Can Sometimes Be Super Ugly, But Also A Warning Sign Of Something Down Below.

When You Cover Politics, You Realize That Knowing How To Talk About Character Matters More And More. The Way We Hold Ideas Is More Important Than The Ideas.

Woe To You Who Insults The Intelligence Community, If You're President.

We Are A Democratic, Egalitarian People Who Spend Our Days Desperately Trying To Climb Over Each Other.

The Effectiveness Of A Group Of People Is Not Determined By Their Iq But By How Well They Communicate.

I Think The Twenty-first Century Happened, Basically. That This Century Started On 9/11. And Basically, It's Been A Century Of Counter Reaction To Globalization And The Meritocracy. And A Good Century For 72 Nations Have Gotten More Authoritarian. We've Had Brexit. We Have Le Pen Rising In France. We've Just Got A Lot Of These Types All Around The World. And The People Who Are Suffering From Globalization And The Meritocracy Are Saying, "no More. You Know, We Get A Voice Too."

[donald Trump] Will Be The One On Offense. He Will Be The One Serving Volleys, And It May Be Some Weird Stuff About The Russians, But He Will Be Controlling Things A Little More Than He Probably Did Over The Last Two Weeks.

I Think The Barack Obama Position And The Majority Position Of American Jews And A Lot Of Americans Is A Two-state Solution Between Israel And Palestine. Settlements Get In The Way Of That. If They're Not Stopped Soon, There Is No Prospect For That Type Of Solution.

Recovering From Suffering Is Not Like Recovering From A Disease. Many People Don’t Come Out Healed; They Come Out Different. They Crash Through The Logic Of Individual Utility And Behave Paradoxically. Instead Of Recoiling From The Sorts Of Loving Commitments That Almost Always Involve Suffering, They Throw Themselves More Deeply Into Them. Even While Experiencing The Worst And Most Lacerating Consequences, Some People Double Down On Vulnerability. They Hurl Themselves Deeper And Gratefully Into Their Art, Loved Ones And Commitments.

If You Do Something Really Cognitively Demanding, Like Buying Furniture, It Turns Out Buying Furniture Is One Of The Most Difficult Things We Do. Go Into A Furniture Store And Look At A Sofa.

President-elect [donald] Trump's Ambassador To Israel Is Further To The Right Than Almost Anyone In Israel, Further To The Right Than Bibi Netanyahu On The Settlements, And Almost Opposes The Two-state Solution, Doesn't He?

I Learned I'm Not A Science Writer. I'm Not Very Good At Describing How Something Is Happening. I Try To Describe "so What?"

America Is Not Just A Democracy, It Represents A Certain Culture Of Competitive Mobility And Personality Aspirations, Politics Is Not Merely A Clash Of Interests, But A Clash Of Dreams.

I Think The Voters Who Voted For Donald Trump Certainly Are Willing To Tolerate A Lot Of Ugliness, But Maybe, If You're In Desperate Circumstances, Or You Think America Is Deeply In Trouble, You're Willing To Tolerate That Without Necessarily Liking It.

There Has Never Been Evidence That People From These [banned] Countries Are Disproportionately Likely To Commit Terrorist Acts. We Have Sent Chaos To The Airports. We Have Offended The World. We Have Derailed The Administration. We Have Done It In Such An Incompetent Way, The Administration Has, That People With Perfectly Legal Residence Have Been Widely Inconvenienced.

If We Got Rid Of Everybody In Washington Who Sold Access For Donations, Then The Town Would Be Empty. But It's Unseemly.

Some Children Lack Tools To See Their Course In The World In Far-sighted Ways. Just Introducing School Vouchers Won't Change That. You Have To Have Nurse-home Partnerships, Early Childhood Education, Mentoring Programs And So On. People Learn From People They Love.

Donald Trump Understands Sense Of Belonging. And A Lot Of People Think Globalization, Any Time You Make Any Particularity, You're Sort Of Offending Some Other Group. And A Lot Of People In This Country Think They Belong To America Anymore, And He At Least Appeals To Some Sense Of Belonging. I Like The Idea That We Belong To Western Traditions, So I'm Glad He Appeals To That Sort Of Thing.

People Who Give Money In Large Amount In Politics Are Basically Not Altruistic. They Have Some Issue. They Have Some Interest. It May Be World Peace. It May Be Preserving Carried Interest. But It's Not Altruistic.

Courage Is The Most Important Virtue Because It Is The Hardest.

Betsy Devos Is Not The Most Informed Person On Education Policy, But I Have Seen Her Present A Few Times, And She Presents As A Pretty Respectable, Intelligent Person Who Has Cared Passionately About Education And Cares About Charter Schools.

People Tend To Marry People With Similar-width Noses, Eyes Similarly Apart, With Complementary Immune Systems.

I Don't Think History Will Ever Be A Science Because History Will Never Be Reduced To Law-like Behavior. People Are To Unpredictable.

Obamacare Is Woven Into The Fabric Of Health Care. It's Very Hard To Just Rip It Out, As Donald Trump Sort Of Acknowledged With The Wall Street Journal.

Those Cultural Wars, Sexual Revolution Issues Are Fading From The Scene, And The Coming Generation Has Basically Settled Them.

Britain Is Blessed With A Functioning Political Culture. It Is Dominated By People Who Live In London And Who Have Often Known Each Other Since Prep School. This Makes It Gossipy And Often Incestuous.

It’s Easy To See Why Politicians Would Be Drawn To The Populist Pose. First, It Makes Everything So Simple. The Economic Crisis Was Caused By A Complex Web Of Factors, Including Global Imbalances Caused By The Rise Of China. But With The Populist Narrative, You Can Just Blame Goldman Sachs.

Empathy Makes You More Aware Of Other People's Suffering, But It's Not Clear It Actually Motivates You To Take Moral Action Or Prevents You From Taking Immoral Action.

Labor-rich Manufacturing Doesn't Exist Anymore. Manufacturing Jobs Are White-collar, Silicon Valley Programmers Or Highly-skilled Technicians. They Are Not Going To Employ Lots Of People.

I Think Charter Schools, Choice, And Frankly School Standards Need A Champion.

Almost Every Successful Person Begins With Two Beliefs: The Future Can Be Better Than The Present, And I Have The Power To Make It So.

The Zooming Wealth Of The Top 1 Percent Is A Problem, But It's Not Nearly As Big A Problem As The Tens Of Millions Of Americans Who Have Dropped Out Of High School Or College. It's Not Nearly As Big A Problem As The 40 Percent Of Children Who Are Born Out Of Wedlock. It's Not Nearly As Big A Problem As The Nation's Stagnant Human Capital, Its Stagnant Social Mobility And The Disorganized Social Fabric For The Bottom 50 Percent.

Parties That Are Majority Parties Are Incoherent Parties.

I Would Like To See An Animating Passion. Tim Kaine Actually Had A Good Line. What Animated You Before You Got Into Politics? And She Actually Does Have A Story There To Tell About Children. And So Drawing That Animating Passion Will Do Good.

Donald Trump Appalls Me. I Won't Be Shy About That.

How Can We Expect Young People To Be Rooted In Things Such As Character, Morality And Honesty? How Is One Supposed To Be At Once An Arrow Soaring Skyward And An Oak Planted Firmly In The Ground? The Meritocratic Culture Hones Strivers On Every Aspect Of Their Lives Save One - How To Cultivate Character.

You Have To Have A Plan, Or Else You're Just Creating A Recipe For Chaos.

[mitch Daniels] Was Not A Bad Governor. He Could Be Playful, But - Or Communicator.i'm Just Saying It Will - I Think Will Be - Every Candidate Comes Into The White House, Assuming If [hillary Clinton] Wins, Or If She Does Win, With Strengths And Weaknesses. This Will Be A Weakness, Because This Was Such An Easy Moment To Show Some Heart.

The Message Of The Summoned Life Is That You Don't Need To Panic If You Don't Yet Know What You Want To Do With Your Life. But You Probably Want To Throw Yourselves Into Circumstances Where The Summons Will Come.

Two Terrible Behaviors Don't Make A Good Behavior.

If You Go In A Confirmation Process, You're Going To Be Asked About The Embarrassing Or Stupid Things You Said. You Should Have A View.

If You Just Rely On One Model, You Tend To Amputate Reality To Make It Fit Your Model.

Of Those Two [hillary Clinton And Donald Trump], I Do Think That The - Right Now, At Least In My Mind, The Democratic Theme Is Eclipsing The Republican One.

I Want To Make Big Films. That's Always Been My Ambition.

People Who Don't Like Trump Really Don't Like Trump. And I Guess I'm Among Them.

Donald Trump Is This Whirling Dervish Of Chaos. He Picked A Fight With Mexico. Germany Is Not Far Behind. He Will Pick A Fight With Them. He Will Pick A Fight With China, Which Would Be Truly Cataclysmic.

The Teachers Union May Not Like Betsy Devos, But She's Clearly Within The Range Of Republican Policy-makers.

I Do Think British And American Politics Rhyme. They Go In Cycles. They Go In Thatcher-reagan Cycles, Blair-clinton Cycles.

Much Of Life Is About Failure, Whether We Acknowledge It Or Not, And Your Destiny Is Profoundly Shaped By How Effectively You Learn From And Adapt To Failure.

People Want A Reality That Tells Them They're Right All Of The Time.

I Think The Presidency Is A Bad Way To Measure The Effective Campaign Finance, Because In The Presidency, There Is So Much Publicity, There's So Much Money Floating Around.

I Could Tell You That When You Have Trouble Making Up Your Mind About Something, Tell Yourself You'll Settle It By Flipping A Coin. But Don't Go By How The Coin Flips; Go By Your Emotional Reaction To The Coin Flip. Are You Happy Or Sad It Came Up Heads Or Tails?

We Live In A Culture Of A Big Me. We're Encouraged - We Raise Our Kids To Think How Great They Are, Where We Have To Market Ourselves To Get Through Life. We're In Social Media, Where We Broadcast Highlight - Highlight Reels Of Our Own Lives On Facebook.

A Heroic Moral Victory For The New York Mets. It May Be The Only Kind Of Victory We're Achieving This Season, But He Set A Good Example For Professional Athletes And The Rest Of Us.

Would [betsy Devos] Be My First Pick? No. Is She Someone Who Has Dedicated Her Life To Education Policy? Yes, Actually, She Has.

Most People Don't Form A Self And Then Lead A Life. They Are Called By A Problem, And The Self Is Constructed Gradually By Their Calling.

Some People Think Humility Is Thinking Lowly Of Yourself. Some People Think It's Not Thinking About Yourself. But, To Me, The Best Definition Of Humility Is Radical Self-awareness From A Distance, Seeing Themselves From A Distance And Saying, What's My Problem?

Thinking About You

... Trash Talk ... Washington Floats On A River Of Aspersion.

I Don't Know If I'm Sexist, Though I Have Not Paid Much Attention To The Women's Bracket.

One Of The Things Capitalism Does Is, It Does Enhance And Exacerbate The Sin Of Pride, Making Yourself, The Material World The Center Of Your Universe, Instead Of God's Will.

The Brain Writes The Autobiography Of Our Species At The Conscious Level.

Since 2005, A Majority Of Americans, According To The Gallup Poll, Have Said It Was Wrong And A Mistake To Go Into Iraq.

I Really Think Of [donald] Trump Erratic. I Think That Was The Big Message That Came Out. The Positive Agenda For Hillary [clinton] Was A Little Less Vibrant.

Who Could Have Predicted This, That The Presidency Is Kind Of A Hard Job? Nobody Knew That. I Also Like The Fact That Trump Is A Detail-oriented Person. I Find His Interviews Amazing. He's Actually Kind Of Remarkably Candid.

The School Asks A Person Who Has Achieved A Certain Level Of Career Success To Give You A Speech Telling You That Career Success Is Not Important.

It’s Only Useful To Ask, What Wisdom Have You Learned From Your Misjudgments That Will Help You Going Forward?

Donald Trump's Got To Do Some Big Changes, Because What He Was Voted On. But When You Think About How To Do It, It Would Take Massive Expertise, Which His People, Believe Me, Do Not Have.

One Of The Things I Think About With Donald Trump Is What Are His Words Actually Attached To? With Trump, I'm Not Sure The Words Have Roots. They Are Emanations Of His Psyche, But Has He Thought It Through? Is There An Argument, Is There A Policy Implication?

I Think Donald Trump Is Going To Find It Very Hard To Do The Kind Of Massive Change He Wants.

One Of The Things This World Is Finding Is That Emotion Is The Basis Of Reason. We Really Have To Trust Our Emotions, Which Are Much Smarter Than Our Reason In Some Ways.

Self-actualization Is What Educated Existence Is All About. For Members Of The Educated Class, Life Is One Long Graduate School. When They Die, God Meets Them At The Gates Of Heaven, Totes Up How Many Fields Of Self-expression They Have Mastered, And Then Hands Them A Divine Diploma And Lets Them In.

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