Quote of the Day (Arthur C. Brooks, Calling for a ‘Politics Cleanse’)

"Start with a politics cleanse: For two weeks… resolve not to read, watch or listen to anything about politics. Don't discuss politics with anyone. When you find yourself thinking about politics, distract yourself with something else. (I listen to Bach cantatas, but that’s not for everybody.) This is hard to do, of course, but not impossible. You just have to plan ahead and stand firm. Think of it as ideological veganism. On the one hand, your friends will think you’re a little wacky. On the other hand, you’ll feel superior to them."— American author and academic Arthur C. Brooks, “Treat Yourself to a Politics Cleanse,” The New York Times, Aug. 2, 2018

Seven years after Brooks wrote this, a “politics cleanse” is all the more necessary—and all the more elusive. Even today, on the 24^th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, politics obscures what should be a day of solemnity and service.

(The image that accompanies this post, of Arthur C. Brooks speaking at an event in Phoenix, AZ, was taken on Apr. 13, 2017 by Gage Skidmore.)

Quote of the Day (Bill Bishop and Robert Cushing, on Like-Minded Groups’ ‘Giant Feedback Loop’)

“Like-minded, homogeneous groups squelch dissent, grow more extreme in their thinking, and ignore evidence that their positions are wrong. As a result, we now live in a giant feedback loop, hearing our own thoughts about what's right and wrong bounced back to us by the television shows we watch, the newspapers and books we read, the blogs we visit online, the sermons we hear, and the neighborhoods we live in.”— American journalist and social commentator Bill Bishop with sociologist Robert Cushing, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart  (2008)

(The image of Bill Bishop that accompanies this post was taken at IdeaFestival2015 on May 23, 2014, by Geoff Oliver Bugbee.)

Quote of the Day (William Galston, on Partisanship and Geography)

“[W]ith today’s deep polarization, voters in the minority experience the enactment of one-party programs as an attack on their deepest convictions. As they lose hope of turning the tide, many respond by leaving their states for others where the majority shares their beliefs. This further intensifies the link between partisanship and geography.

“If this trend continues, our nation will become a patchwork in which citizens live under fundamentally different legal regimes.”— American author, academic, political advisor, and Brookings Institution senior fellow William Galston, “Florida Turns Right, Minnesota Turns Left,” The Wall Street Journal, June 7, 2023

The accompanying photo of William Galston was taken Jan. 8, 2012, at a Civics Ed panel at the Brookings Institution by Medill DC.