Christopher Schroeder

Category: politics

  • If We Can Keep It

    If We Can Keep It

    I didn’t expect to be politically re-energized again.

    I was, and still am, confused and curious about the next No Kings initiative of “hyper-local actions” alongside larger gatherings. I can understand the Indivisible mid-term optimism as a result of current polling data, Trump’s alienating actions, and its hope strategy but cannot ignore that I’ve been here before.

    I naively hoped that the first rally (April 2025) would capture politicians’ attention and compel substantial responses. I was more and more discouraged after subsequent rallies (June and October 2025 and March 2026).

    I objected to the way that Indivisible deployed a similar exclusionary strategy as others who critiqued mainstream Democratic leadership. I agree with the need for this specific critique, and support such critiques generally, but I wish liberals would lose their purity tests, and their political hypocrisies, and instead emphasize cross-community coalition-building.

    Then I read Jill Lepore’s most recent book about the Constitution. This book, which won the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for history, offers an account of this foundational document that focuses on the part played by people in the pursuit of a more perfect union.

    The Constitution according to Lepore was designed as both a resistance and means to change. Central was the assumption that this document would not be preserved in its original form at all costs but that it would consistently and constantly updated and changed through amendments and other ways by the American people.

    Such a perspective, which she painstakingly establishes, is also clear in her critique of originalism. This interpretive strategy, which is predicated upon the search for the original intention or meaning, reinforces the impression of an artifact or relic to be preserved rather than a principled process for adaptation and change.

    This book, which some consider Lepore’s best, isn’t my favorite one of hers. Nonetheless, it convinced me that the American political system is a participatory sport, and not something seen from the sidelines.

    And it restored my motivation to reconnect with No Kings, Indivisible, and other political organizations that are calling out and challenging the corruption of this current administration, its Congressional enablers, and my fellow Americans who voted for them.

    Benjamin Franklin’s qualified answer to that Constitutional Convention question seems as relevant today as ever.

  • Things That Should Be Said

    Things That Should Be Said

    I was more excited about getting to read Elizabeth Strout’s latest novel The Things We Never Say than I am about having read it.

    I tend to like Strout’s novels more than I expect, so I thought that this one, and especially its fifty-seven-year-old high school history teacher protagonist named Artie, would be even better. Artie, like so many of us, is beset by a loneliness that as its epigraph attests comes from his alienation in the midst of others.

    Artie and his wife of many years Evie are struggling with the emotional aftermath of their son Rob’s car crash that killed his girlfriend. Artie discovers that his initial response, which is suicide, isn’t as appealing after he falls into the water while stepping into his sailboat, and that he actually has a desire to live, which he spends the rest of the novel trying to do.

    Other critics praise have praised this novel for many reasons, including this memorable protagonist and its cast of characters and its spare yet sharp style.

    I also admired it for its political and personal timeliness. Loneliness if social media are any indication besets the best of us, and the Trump administration antics can alienate all of us, and in that offer us some common ground.

    I additionally appreciated the intersection of character and plot, and especially Artie’s connection with his son Rob, whose circumstances push them closer and later pull them apart. One contributing cause is Evie’s secret that is exposed yet never confronted, which sadly seems so familiar.

    I could recognize the potential in other choices, such as a shifting POV that promises an unprovided intimacy. That and others reinforce the loneliness theme, and combine for a rhetorically withheld catharsis that cleverly compelled me to keep reading and unfortunately was ultimately unsatisfying.

    This condition can be seen in Artie, whose experiences that he both can and cannot change illustrate the excruciating effect of loneliness around others. His motivation however is never quite clear.

    Is Artie driven by his relative poor childhood or his current political outrage or even a righteous indignation over political and personal circumstances combined with an unavoidable awareness of his relative privilege? The answer can never be found in the accumulation of too many tragedies, one after another until the end.

    I respect Strout’s effort, and her commitment to and confidence in this project. I just believe that the book would have been better served with at least another draft.

    The loss is all that this book could but doesn’t say, which is even more lamentable in light of its final paragraphs and our current circumstances.

  • Some Vital Signs

    Some Vital Signs

    Chicago Public Media could be showing encouraging signs of life.

    It recently announced the release of a new website about Chicago for its residents. This space, which reportedly reflects a passion for this city and confronts its fractured communities, is based upon a central public media belief that some “civic infrastructure” cannot come from, and depend upon, the marketplace.

    This site at the moment is basic. It features slick testimonials about the city, a donation link, and a contact form link for those who want to contribute to its development.

    The most exciting element is the link to its rationale, which explains that CPM hopes to offer “trusted local information, communication knowledge, civic and cultural resources, and new opportunities for participation” from its “trusted organizations” — the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ. Like these, this new space will be driven not by profit but by the public media mission, and will consider its members not as “number[s]” but as “neighbor[s]”.

    This proposal suggests an awareness of its challenges. However, the proof obviously will be the ways these principles are converted into practices.

    The world has obviously changed, and these changes seem to be accelerating. CPM exists in a world for example where fewer people read newspapers and listen to the radio, and do these if at all online.

    At the same time, the last few years have been challenging. CPM seemed unprepared for instance to integrate the newspaper and to compensate for the predictable federal funding loss.

    Perhaps more challenging has been the inconsistency between its assertions and its actions in small and big ways. Most if not all of these efforts to confront such inconsistencies have been frustratingly ineffective and resulted in maddeningly inadequate responses if any at all.

    Public media are essential, especially in this disinformation era (McQuade 2024, e.g.). Chicago Public Media must retain the best of its previous purposes, such as providing reliable information and curating news stories, and reconfigure its contributions for a fluid future.

    That could go far in restoring my confidence in, and restoring my reduced financial contributions to, this important Chicago institution.