THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE: “The local roots of civility.”
The American Conservative November 2, 2023
by Chris Bullivant
In the fall of 2021, a group of former Hill staffers and current think tank scholars gathered in a small room in Old Town Alexandria just outside Washington, D.C. The group represented a wide range of perspectives from across the center-right, with former staff from the Trump and George W. Bush White House teams; staff from the Rick Santorum and Carly Fiorina campaigns; and former denizens of the Hill, from Mike Lee’s office to Paul Ryan’s. Together, social conservatives, economic conservatives, and libertarians were in the room to take a broad look at the decline in “social capital”—that rich network of relationships that support us in our private and professional lives from the cradle to the grave.
The deterioration of social capital and its regional inequality has been measured by declines in neighborliness, numbers of nonprofits, charitable giving, church attendance, marriage rates among lower-income cohorts, and rises in loneliness and crime rates. The academic analysis suggests that the decline in social capital across America explains the overall decline in society-wide trust in national institutions such as the government, the media, and each other.
READ IN FULL AT EITHER:
“A Civil Society. Celebrating Diversity of Opinion.”
Chris Bullivant
April 2023
