He’s supposed to be working with his fellow legislators, following the civic script I learned in school, not giving them Hulk Hogan’s Atomic Leg Drop. Right?

“To know what has come before is to be armed against despair,”

The anger and resentment tied into all this make it easier—way easier—to do something we do our darnedest to avoid: hate.

“Our brains are most productive when there is no demand that they be reactive,”

Misinformation isn’t the product of a culture that doesn’t value truth. It’s the product of a culture in which we’ve grown too afraid to turn to each other and hear it.

False stories soar because good people relate to something in them that’s true: a fear or value or concern that’s going unheard, unexplored, and unacknowledged. Every time? Yes, every time! Why do we ignore that?

Isaac Asimov called conversations where people connect and learn together “cerebrations” (yes, just one letter off from “celebrations”). The bridging conversations I’m talking about don’t party, exactly.

My second-favorite word in Spanish that has no translation in English is “convivir.” It’s a verb that means “to live together.”

Ideological polarization is based on reason. Affective polarization is based on feelings. But false polarization? That’s just based on a lie.