A New York Times American Nations OpEd

The New York Times asked me to write an opinion piece on the political implications of American Nations recently and, to my great pleasure, accepted it and built a terrific graphics package to illustrate the paradigm.

The result was published yesterday at the Times and -- thank all of you -- shot up to be the most read piece on the entire site this morning. I've mentioned before the power of the colorized map in drawing people's attention on social media, and I'm doubly sure of it now.

Thanks to John Guida and Bill Marsh for their time and attention.

For those new to the paradigm -- and wanting to know more, a couple of quick links:

To really understand what this is all about: please do read the book.

To wade in a little deeper without the book: start with this Tufts Magazine piece, which unpacks the paradigm in more detail and uses it to analyze a public policy issue -- violence and gun control -- that isn't presented in the book at all. Or, conversely, look at this Washington Monthly article to see why the (libertarian-captured) Tea Party Movement fizzled in places candidate Trump (relatively communitarian on the stump) would make inroads.

To see more data on the rural vs urban issue: dig into this piece I did for Medium.

For more on Trump and the 2016 election: check out this at the Portland Press Herald.

To find out what's up with Alaska, Hawaii and South Florida: go here.

To see me present the whole thing in detail to an audience: CSPAN's got that.

To explore the central debate of our federal experience -- the proper balance between individual liberty and the common good -- consider reading American Nations' sequel, American Character.