After the election of 2016 and, even more urgently, after the election of 2020, many citizens looked at the economic and cultural divisions that were causing deep disruptions in American politics and asked, "What is happening to us?" Paul W. Kahn explores these fundamental changes as they show themselves in a small New England town--his home of twenty-five years, Killingworth, Connecticut. His inquiry grounds a democratic theory that puts volunteering,...

Americans today are frustrated and anxious. Our economy is sluggish, and leaves workers insecure. Income inequality, cultural divisions, and political polarization increasingly pull us apart. Our governing institutions often seem paralyzed. And our politics has failed to rise to these challenges. No wonder, then, that Americans--and the politicians who represent them--are overwhelmingly nostalgic for a better time. The Left looks back to the middle...