Honest people know that the road to success and virtue always involves shared sacrifice, hard work, and gratification postponed. Telling people otherwise isn't leadership, it is pandering.

A basic assumption shapes most Americans’ mindset about labor: the belief that the death of unions isn’t my problem because I’m not in a union. That assumption is wrong. Even if you aren’t a member, your pay is influenced by the strength or weakness of organized labor. The presence of unions sets off a wage race to the top. Their absence sets off a race to the bottom.

Identity in America is complicated but it's also simple: it's about whom you identify with and who identifies with you.

Today's multiracial Americans are at greater liberty to choose how they'd like to be seen, and under less pressure to pass for white.

We tend to think of politics as bad, full of dirty tricks, negative ads, big campaigns, but I am here to explore the original meaning of politics, which is positive and has to do with balancing competing interests and looking for solutions.

True patriots believe that freedom from responsibility is selfishness, freedom from sacrifice is cowardice, freedom from tolerance is prejudice, freedom from stewardship is exploitation, and freedom from compassion is cruelty.

The next time someone uses denial of citizenship as a weapon or brandishes the special status conferred upon him by the accident of birth, ask him this: What have you done lately to earn it?