In the wake of Biden’s resignation and the coronation of Kamala Harris, it’s likely that this year’s election will be particularly divisive and vitriolic. We will hear endless hysteria about the election being the most important in American history, blah blah blah. But while I certainly don’t believe that American democracy is under existential threat, there clearly is a problem with the ugliness of political discourse. So what to do about it? Anne Snyder, editor-in-chief of Comment magazine and author of The Fabric of Character, has given a great deal of thought to strengthening what she calls “the middle ring” of morally formative institutions. And I caught up with Snyder at the recent Braver Angels convention in Kenosha, Wisconsin, to discuss how to work on a moral renewal of the United States. More easily said that done, of course, but Snyder’s voice is important in a country increasingly bereft of morally formative institutions.

Anne Snyder is the editor-in-chief of Comment magazine and oversees our partner project, Breaking Ground. She is the host of The Whole Person Revolution podcast and co-editor of Breaking Ground: Charting Our Future in a Pandemic Year, published in January 2022. Prior to leading Comment, she directed The Philanthropy Roundtable‘s Character Initiative, a program seeking to help foundations and business leaders strengthen “the middle ring” of morally formative institutions. Her path-breaking guidebook, The Fabric of Character: A Wise Giver’s Guide to Renewing our Social and Moral Landscape, was published in 2019. From 2014 to 2017 Anne worked for Laity Lodge and the H.E. Butt Foundation in Texas, and before that, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, World Affairs Journal and The New York Times. She is a Senior Fellow of The Trinity Forum and a Fellow at the Urban Reform Institute, a Houston-based think tank that explores how cities can drive opportunity for the bulk of their citizens. She has published widely, including The Atlantic Monthly, the Washington Post, Bittersweet Monthly and of course Comment, but consistently tries to balance her writing work with the call of community. Anne spent the formative years of her childhood overseas before earning a bachelor’s degree from Wheaton College (IL) and a master’s degree from Georgetown University. She currently lives in Washington, D.C.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

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As CEO of the AI start-up DoNotPay, Joshua Browder is one of Silicon Valley’s rising young entrepreneurs. Born in the UK and educated at Stanford, Browder is from a remarkable family of American innovators and activists. His great grandfather, Earl Browder, was head of the US Communist Party. His grandfather, Felix Browder, was one of America’s most brilliant mathematicians. And his father, Bill Browder, is an American investor, activist and high profile critic of Vladimir Putin. Given this unique lineage, I began my conversation with Josh Browder by asking him what being American meant to him.

Joshua Browder is the CEO and Founder of DoNotPay.com, the world's first robot lawyer. DoNotPay has automated over 200 consumer rights processes for consumers, including cancelling subscriptions, lowering bills and obtaining refunds, among many others. To date, the company has won over 2m cases for its customers. Browder has been named as one of the “35 Innovators Under 35” by MIT Technology Review and one of the top legal innovators in America by the Financial Times. Before starting DoNotPay, Browder studied Computer Science at Stanford, dropping out after 3 and a half years to take the Thiel Fellowship. He has since invested in over 150 companies, including Figma, Mercury, Owner.com, Riverside and Jeeves. He focuses his investing on first time entrepreneurs, such as college and high school dropouts.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Lauded by KEEN ON favorites like Dave Eggers & Dale Maharidge, J. Malcolm Garcia might be the Studs Terkel of contemporary American literature. Having worked as a social worker with San Francisco’s homeless community for 14 years, he then became an acclaimed journalist and winner of the Studs Terkel prize for writing about the American working classes. And now Garcia is publishing his first fiction, Out of the Rain, a novel about the people in a San Francisco homeless shelter. Garcia brings the wisdom of an experienced social worker and the eye of an prize winning writer to a problem which is the shame of wealthy American cities like San Francisco.

J. Malcolm Garcia was born in the Chicago suburb of Winnetka, IL. He attended Ripon College from 1975 to 1977. He transferred to Coe College in the fall of 1977 and graduated from Coe in May 1979. He wrote for The Coe Cosmos newspaper and was active in college theater. As a social worker, Garcia worked with homeless people in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district for 14 years before he made the jump into journalism in 1997. He reported for The Kansas City Star newspaper from 1998 to 2009 when he began his freelance career. The tragedy of September 11th, 2001, gave him the opportunity to work in Afghanistan. Since then he has written on Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Chad, Haiti, Honduras, and Argentina among other countries. He is a recipient of the Studs Terkel Prize for writing about the working classes and the Sigma Delta Chi Award for excellence in journalism.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.