Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey into the Heart of America

"There has always been this contrived boundary between domestic policy and foreign policy. They have always been intimately intertwined, but with the populist and nationalist stirrings we’re seeing, I think that looking at the relationship between the two and recognizing the artificiality of the boundary between the two of them is becoming more important. I also like the conceit of the book. James Fallows and his wife Deborah fly across the country. They charter a private plane and parachute into small towns across the country. There’s this romanticism about it. Sam Huntington said three decades ago that the litmus test of a great power is its capacity to renew itself. And we pride ourselves on being able to reinvent ourselves socially and politically. What they demonstrate in their book is that at a time when many Americans and many foreign observers look to American politics and see nothing but dysfunction, outside the view of social and national media, there is a renaissance and a regeneration occurring. One of the reasons we don’t hear about it is that it’s local news. Local news just doesn’t get the airtime that national news does and, tragically, a lot of funding for local journalism is being gutted. There isn’t enough bandwidth to cover it. Bill Clinton said, ‘We should rely more on the power of our example than the example of our power.’ And one point that they make in their book is that if America wants to restore this soft power, this ideational and ideological power that is so key to its overall power, we really need to be doing more to surface the success stories at the local level. What they document is that a lot of exciting policy innovation—whether it’s on energy, education, healthcare, you name it—is occurring in governors’ offices. It’s occurring in mayors’ offices. It’s occurring in city councils. Now they’re not naive. They’re hardly arguing that localities are quarantined from national-level political dysfunction, and they’re certainly not arguing that localities are immune from very deep political chasms. But they’re arguing that people on a day-to-day basis say, ‘Look, we need to get work done. So if congressional dysfunction is persisting, then we need to take matters into our own hands.’ There’s a pulling-ourselves-up-by-the-bootstraps pragmatism that is increasingly animating people. ‘Look, yes, you’re a Republican, I’m a Democrat, but people are complaining about traffic. People are saying that schools aren’t working. We need to do something.’ They are more creative in policymaking and they’re thinking in refreshingly bigger terms. At the national level right now, we feel good about our government if we don’t have a shutdown and are able to pass basic pieces of legislation. At the local level, though, people are forging a path for how America can reinvent itself. One reason I put the book on this list is that it affirms what makes America a superpower. Yes, it has a singular capacity to project military power. It has the largest economy. But that power has always been seen to be tethered to an idea—an idea that America can rebuild itself and that America’s polity is resilient. Also, the idea that people from around the world can contribute to its ongoing renaissance. I don’t think we’re going to be reduced to second-rate status, but if we continue to rely inordinately on our hard power assets, I don’t know how long we can sustain ourselves as a superpower. So what I want people to see with this book is that the American idea is taking shape in a different way. America is reinventing itself again. There is a very intimate connection between our ability to wield influence in world affairs and the impression that people have of how our domestic politics are functioning. Their book gives me a sense of optimism about America’s capacity for reinvention. They have a good sense for taking the pulse of the country. Their book gave me a newfound appreciation for how distorted our views of politics can be if we just focus on what’s happening at the national level and spend too much time on social media. That’s not to say that certain concerning rhetoric about immigrants and immigration at the national level hasn’t trickled down. But their journalism bears out that if you get past that rhetoric and actually go to certain cities that are alleged to be very hostile to immigrants, there’s a sense of people saying, ‘Okay, let’s all come together. We need to work on these problems.’ So I think that there is a sense of resilience and pragmatism at the local level when it comes to immigration as well. And I would also say there is a sense of urgency that, ‘Yes, we would like for our national level leaders to be the agents of policy innovation, but if they’re not going to take action, then we need to.’ I’m from a small town in Virginia, Fredericksburg, roughly 30,000 people. My parents are immigrants. They came from Pakistan well over 30 years ago now. I owe my life to this town, which has been very welcoming to me. If someone who had never been to Fredericksburg were to make a prediction about what the atmosphere would be like for immigrants, they might say, ‘Well, it’s in Virginia, you’re starting to get towards the south, maybe it’s unfriendly to immigrants.’ But we have a flourishing immigrant community that plays a very active role in Fredericksburg. Once you zoom in from the national level and actually observe what’s going on across America—go to a coffee shop, go to a library, go to a town hall, talk with people—you get a sense that people are pulling up their bootstraps and getting work done. And I believe that that phenomenon will continue. What I’m not certain about is whether that narrative of revival will percolate up. The storyline of political paralysis, of polarization is so dominant in an era of social media. And it’s difficult to avoid. I don’t doubt America’s capacity to reinvent. I do question whether that narrative of reinvention will rise up high enough that it gains traction here at home as well as with a foreign audience. That’s a concern."