Wheeling, West Virginia Correspondent — Policy disagreement is normal. What feels different is the willingness to treat ordinary opposition as illegitimate. When large parts of the public and the political class see the other side as an existential threat, the strain lands on courts, election processes, law enforcement, and the basic norms around transferring power. … Continue reading Is the growing political polarization in the United States now a greater threat to institutional stability than any single policy disagreement?
Symposium Q&A 2019
Thinking Outside the Boxe — 2019 Annual Summit, December 31, 2019 in Orlando, Florida. Each correspondent is allotted up to five minutes. Only initial comments are recorded; subsequent discussion is not part of the record.
How can the United States reduce the risk of another major aviation safety failure after the Boeing 737 MAX grounding without creating excessive regulatory delay?
Dayton, Ohio Correspondent — The MAX showed gaps in how new systems were certified and in how internal schedule pressure was managed. Those are two different failures and the second one is the one my profession recognizes. I've worked under a launch date. Everybody has. What keeps a launch date from killing somebody is a … Continue reading How can the United States reduce the risk of another major aviation safety failure after the Boeing 737 MAX grounding without creating excessive regulatory delay?
Will the rapid expansion of online content moderation by private platforms ultimately create a new form of de facto public censorship?
Clermont, Florida Correspondent — When a handful of private platforms become the primary public square, their moderation decisions start to function like public rules without any of the accountability that attaches to public rules. I see this at the level of my clients, which is smaller than the free-speech argument but more concrete. A professional … Continue reading Will the rapid expansion of online content moderation by private platforms ultimately create a new form of de facto public censorship?
Should the impeachment process be reserved for clear criminal conduct, or is it a legitimate political tool for checking executive power?
Prescott Valley, Arizona Correspondent — The constitutional text and the early history treat impeachment as a political remedy for serious abuses of power rather than as a criminal trial. Restricting it to indictable crimes would narrow a check designed to be broader. Using it as a routine instrument for policy disagreement drains its legitimacy and … Continue reading Should the impeachment process be reserved for clear criminal conduct, or is it a legitimate political tool for checking executive power?
Is the current trajectory of U.S.–China economic decoupling more likely to produce strategic resilience or mutual economic damage?
Dayton, Ohio Correspondent — Partial decoupling in the critical sectors can improve resilience if it's deliberate and paired with real capacity, domestic or allied. Semiconductors, certain rare earths, advanced telecom. Broad, rapid separation across the whole relationship produces mutual damage — higher costs, disrupted chains, slower innovation on both ends. What I'd watch for is … Continue reading Is the current trajectory of U.S.–China economic decoupling more likely to produce strategic resilience or mutual economic damage?
