People engaged in high-rung politics, without the burden of rigid attachment to any one ideology, can combine ideas from across the spectrum to form a nimble political superbrain that can respond in nuanced ways to changing times.

We tend to focus on battles over specific issues — gun laws, immigration policy, abortion — but lasting change in the United States must go deeper than efforts to reform individual policy areas. It will require a majority of Americans coming to believe that what we have in common with other Americans is greater than our differences. For many of us,