Greetings from a steamy start to July. Northwest Arkansas is usually hot and humid this time of year, but this summer seems to be especially oppressive so far. Our family will be heading north to Lake Michigan this weekend for a brief reprieve. We’ve never been there, but are looking forward to a relaxing few days near the water. Pray for traveling mercies and that we would be filled with patience, kindness, and generosity toward one another, especially during three long days of driving.
First, though, an important announcement: I’ll be in Atlanta next month to speak at the American Values Coalition’s “Politics, Polarization, and Peacemaking” Conference. Headlining this conference are the AND Campaign’s Justin Giboney, national security expert Elizabeth Neumann, and Disarming Leviathan’s Caleb Campbell. This conference is geared primarily toward pastors and other church leaders, but if you’re in the area, I’d love to see you there.
Before we head out of town, I wanted to share a handful of things that have been on my mind. One is related to Uneasy Citizenship. Another is from the last days of this year’s term at the U.S. Supreme Court. And a third comes from Alan Noble — specifically, what he calls “social myths.”
1. Individualism and tribalism
A couple of weeks ago I met up for coffee with Ed Ericson. Ed is a former colleague at John Brown University, where he served as a professor of history and Vice President for Academic Affairs for the better part of three decades. Ed was involved in my hiring in 2016, and has been a consistent source of conversation and encouragement since then.
Over the course of last month’s conversation, Ed identified an interesting puzzle/paradox in Uneasy Citizenship. In Chapter 2 I highlight the challenge of political polarization and tribalism for a Christ-centered political engagement, while in Chapter 3 I discuss the rise of expressive individualism as a challenge to our shared political experiment.
With this in mind, Ed had a question for me: If these challenges are so essential to making sense of the crisis at the heart of today’s politics, how exactly are they reconcilable? That is, how is political tribalism, with its emphasis on identifying as part of a group, consistent with the rise of expressive individualism, with its emphasis on the person? And if both are key problems, what is driving what, exactly?
These are important questions. My initial reaction was that tribalism and individualism are, in fact, reconcilable; they’re not mutually exclusive. Simply put, people are increasingly likely to find their identities—their sense of uniqueness—in today’s environment of political polarization and tribalism. Or, as Derek Thompson said in a recent episode of his podcast Plain English, “Groups make us feel more individual. We feel most like ourselves when we find a place where we belong.”1
People are increasingly likely to find their identities—their sense of uniqueness—in today’s environment of political polarization and tribalism.
As for what’s driving what, this strikes me as a chicken-egg problem — expressive individualism seeks a place in a tribe of like-minded people in order to give meaning to one’s identity, which helps to fortify a person’s sense of individualism. If tribalism is driving the car, then the solution to these challenges might involve making tweaks around the margins of our political system (e.g., ranked choice voting and open primary elections). If expressive individualism is in charge, though, potential solutions get more basic and therefore more difficult.
My gut reaction is that it’s individualism driving tribalism. After all, a political community is really just a collection of individuals with personalized wants and desires. What does this mean for our politics? If we really are dissatisfied with the polarized and contentious nature of today’s environment, then we have nobody to blame but ourselves.
2. Making sense of the Supreme Court’s 2023-24 term
Earlier this week the nation’s highest court concluded its most recent term. It ruled on dozens of cases over the last year, from upholding access to mifepristone—the drug often used to terminate early-stage pregnancies—to discarding a decades-old precedent that will alter how laws are executed to providing a victory (at least at the moment) to Donald Trump’s claims of immunity from prosecution involving his post-2020 elections actions.
Here are some initial reactions:
The mifepristone decision hinged on the legal doctrine of standing — specifically, whether the group of doctors challenging the Food and Drug Administration’s regulations on mifepristone had the ability to challenge the law in the first place.2 All nine justices agreed that the group did not have standing, thereby dismissing the case and overturning the lower courts’ decisions.
Still, the justices did not reach a decision on the merits of the case, meaning that should a future challenge successfully establish standing to bring the lawsuit, the Court would determine whether the FDA acted properly when making rules on access to the drug. In that spirit, don’t be surprised to see related challenges in the future — Alliance Defending Freedom, the Christian legal organization behind the case, acknowledged the Court’s decision is permitting the FDA’s “recklessness” to continue “for now.”In a 6-3, ideologically divided decision, the Court overturned 1984’s Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council. Without getting too technical, in Chevron the Court held that administrative agencies—from the EPA and ATF to OSHA and the FDA—and executive departments should be given wide latitude when interpreting and implementing congressional statutes. In essence, the expertise of these agencies and departments should be given a good deal of deference when putting federal law into practice — hence the administrative law term “Chevron deference.”
In overturning Chevron, the current Court said that Chevron went beyond the Constitution’s framework for the separation of powers. Congress must not abandon its responsibility to pass detailed laws in order to take advantage of the expertise of the executive branch. And courts are now poised to take a more aggressive role in policing this relationship, leading to a more subdued executive branch and more empowered legislature.
Odds are the average person may not think much of the death of Chevron, but given the influence of the administrative state in the lives of all Americans, this decision may well end up being the most important of all this term’s cases.
In the most attention-grabbing case of the year, the Court issued a complicated but decisive ruling for Donald Trump in his ongoing legal battles over the events of January 6, 2021. The decision expanded on the doctrine of presidential immunity, when it can be exercised, and (crucially) whether there are any limits to a president’s claims of immunity.
Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for a 6-3 Court (once again divided along conservative-liberal lines), declared presidents have “absolute immunity” in the sphere of their “core constitutional powers.” This does not mean presidents are immune for any actions taken in the White House, but if these actions are exercised in their official capacity as president, then the Court has in essence declared prosecuting such actions off limits.
This means Trump cannot face legal action for discussions he had with Justice Department officials about requiring certain states to appoint alternative, Trump-friendly slates of electors to the Electoral College. It means Trump is probably not legally culpable for conversations he had with Vice President Mike Pence about Pence’s authority to preside over Congress’s certification of the Electoral College’s tally. But—and this is key—the Court’s decision kicks these sorts of questions back down to lower courts for their assessment, consistent with the Court’s instructions in this case.
There are a lot of implications here. The most important—at least in the short term—is that Trump will not go to trial on the January 6 charges before November’s election. I’m skeptical of all the doom and gloom coming from Trump’s critics, that the Court’s decision effectively declares the president a monarch and spells an end to the American political experiment. Still, the case does raise all sorts of questions about the powers and limits of the American presidency. These questions will no doubt involve Trump, but they will almost certainly persist beyond him.
3. Our tendency to choose symbols over substance
In an article for The Gospel Coalition, Alan Noble writes on the idea of the “social myth,” which he considers to play an essential role to today’s most salient culture war contests. According to Noble, social myths “are a disordered way of engaging with legitimate cultural issues relevant to our public witness as Christians.” He says:
Social myths don’t require deep thinking, evidence, or rhetorical skill. They only require us to act according to mythology—and the emotional benefits are significant. We feel as if we’re doing something profoundly important, even though all we’re doing is shouting into the void.
The problem with social myths is they distract us from the core issues, seducing us into meaningless identity signaling that doesn’t advance our causes or the gospel.
Noble then offers four main points about the nature of social myths:
They are connected to legitimate cultural issues
They are found primarily on social media
They generally prioritize symbolism over substance
They bring with them a sense of “cosmic importance”
Concerning Point 3, Noble explains:
Memes are perhaps the best example of the “symbol over substance” nature of social myths. They tend to pursue maximum virality over persuasive power. The substance of a debated topic is submerged under the image of the topic portrayed in a meme. The goal is to reproduce the meme through shares, rather than to persuade anyone or honestly engage with an issue.
How often do we retweet or share or “like” something to signal not our commitment to deep and meaningful discussion of an issue, but rather simply our position on the issue? How often do we default to symbolic agreement on an issue without commiting to a rich and substantive understanding of that issue? The latter is better—indeed, essential—for a thriving political culture, but the former, in the age of social media, is far, far easier — and, most of the time, sufficient for the level of political engagement expected today.
Noble’s discussion reminds a bit of what political scientist Eitan Hersh describes as “political hobbyism,” when people replace meaningful political action with simply following day-to-day political drama. Noble seems to be saying that social myths can alleviate our responsibility to commit to real, complex political engagement, confusing action with simply cosplay.
Noble ends with several suggestions for better engagement on cultural conflicts, concluding,
However we engage with the many legitimate cultural issues that face us, we must do so with courage and love, as wise as serpents and gentle as doves. People are confused about sex, gender, the sanctity of life, and a host of other issues. Christians have always made the gospel known through advocating for just governmental policies and social norms. The challenge is to do this in a way that doesn’t get absorbed into the internet’s trivializing gaze.
As we make our way toward November’s presidential election, this strikes me as useful and good advice.
Thompson’s comments begin around the six-minute mark of the episode. He was channelling a conversation he had recently had with economist Laurence Iannaccone, a pioneer in the scientific study of religion and author of groundbreaking paper “Why Strict Churches are Strong.”
Let’s say that a police officer kicks down the door to my neighbor’s house, ransacks his property, and injures him, without any reason for doing any of these things. My neighbor could conceivably file a civil lawsuit against the officer for monetary damages. My neighbor, being the victim of the officer’s actions, would have standing to do this. I, however, could not sue the officer for his actions, having suffered no injury—mental, physical, or material—myself. In this sense, I lack standing.