This may seem like just another of the ubiquitous jeremiads being written to bemoan the sorry state of our politics and public life. I assure you it’s not. I hope you will read all the way to the end.
Not that there isn’t much to bemoan, of course. For example, the way our nation and its people are being hollowed out, both physically and morally.
Take U.S. population growth. You probably read this past week that our growth rate slowed sharply in 2025—50% lower than 2024, about 519,000 more births than deaths. Fertility rates have dropped below the 2.1 births per woman that are necessary to maintain a stable population, absent migration:
· 2004 ~2.0
· 2014 ~1.86
· 2024 ~1.60
Consider polling that reflects attitudes toward having children. Recent data from Pew Research Center suggest that Americans are rethinking whether they want to become parents. The percentage of nonparents who don’t want children rose from 14% in 2002 to 29% in 2023. During the same period, the percent of nonparents who plan to have children in the future fell from 79% to 59%. Rising concern over the cost of raising children was cited, along with the fear of bringing children into a world with an increasingly hostile climate and uncertain environmental future.
Immigration has been an even greater driver of population growth. But, net migration (number moving into the country minus number moving out) dropped in 2025 to 1.3 million from 2.7 million in 2024. Shocker! I can’t find any projections that show immigration doing anything but decreasing in the foreseeable future.
Slowing population growth seems inevitable and there are even some credible projections of net population loss in the coming decades. This is a disastrous formula for the economy. With an already widening wealth gap, staying that course can only hollow out the middle class even more.
Last February, Elon Musk waved the chainsaw overhead at CPAC, boasting that he and DOGE were feeding government programs “into the wood chipper.” It was emblematic of the Project 2025 goal to hollow out government institutions, programs, staffing, and so on. Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget has been in charge of restructuring, reducing the scope of, and occasionally eliminating federal agencies, with little apparent concern for the impacts on people.
Away from Washington D.C. there’s equal cause for concern for troubling negative trends in important intangibles—community, isolation, trust, kindness, hostility, social cohesion, honesty, democratic ideals, and constitutional norms. I was in the midst of enumerating some of the key findings of a few respected nonpartisan studies (Pew Research Center, Gallup, American Enterprise Institute, and the General Social Survey.) But after filling a page with them, I realized there was little to be gained by bludgeoning you with statistics on observations you’ve no doubt already made yourselves.
I don’t know how many people in the past year I’ve heard say that they just can’t take reading/watching/listening to the news. I agree that doing so can make you feel as exposed and vulnerable as taking a walk in acid rain. Indecency and cruelty masquerading as policy. Indifference to the process and rule of law. The relentless destruction of institutions whose purpose is the common good. The assault on the free press. One can only take so much at a time. But make no mistake, whether we are tuned in or not, it still affects all of us and its corrosive effect is hollowing out the moral infrastructure of democracy itself.
Which is partly why the citizens of Minneapolis and other occupied cities have struck such a powerful chord and awakened a desperately needed modicum of spirit and hope across the country. Firstly, the sacrificial deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti have produced an exemplar for what can happen when a population stands by the evidence of their eyes and ears and rejects the lies of an authoritarian regime.
Secondly, the conspicuous brutality of ICE and the Border Patrol has cast the spotlight on the good people of Minneapolis. Armed with their whistles and compassion, they have daily demonstrated the revolutionary spirit of the colonists who responded to Paul Revere’s alert that the British were coming. Stated more mundanely, they have proven the worth of community, of caring for your neighbors, of refusing to be hollowed out.
One day, sooner rather than later if cities all over America emulate Minneapolis, the threat to the regime from backlashes like that of the past 10 days will eventually become its death knell. What comes next will depend on the extent to which Americans have been busy replenishing the qualities required for a healthy democracy.
So, it’s understandable if you need an occasional break from engaging. But understand we have work to do. Work we CAN do. We can be tending to the moral infrastructure of democracy in our own communities, one neighborhood at a time.
Brilliant framing here. The parallel between demographic hollowing and institutional decay is something I hadn't conscisely connected before, but it makes total sense when you lay it out. I've noticed in my own neighborhood how that sense of communal resilience seems to wax and wane with local engagement. The Minneapolis example feels like a real test case for whether localized solidarity can scale into somthing lasting.