Some of the United States' enemies now assume, perhaps rightly, that we hate each other so much that we'd sooner collaborate with them than do the difficult work of listening to each other. It doesn't need to be this way - but national recovery won't come from Washington. It has to start with you.

Rising political tribalism, shamelessly exaggerating our opponents' claims or behavior, is leaving us vulnerable: No one loves America's internal fighting - and our increasingly siloed news consumption - more than Vladimir Putin.

The word deepfake has become a generic noun for the use of machine-learning algorithms and facial-mapping technology to digitally manipulate people's voices, bodies and faces. And the technology is increasingly so realistic that the deepfakes are almost impossible to detect.

Deepfakes - seemingly authentic video or audio recordings that can spread like wildfire online - are likely to send American politics into a tailspin, and Washington isn't paying nearly enough attention to the very real danger that's right around the corner.

Few experiences help our kids discover the distinction between needs and wants like the great outdoors.

Becoming a reader grows our horizons, our appetite for the good, the true and the beautiful, and our empathy.

The health of our republic depends on shared principles like the First Amendment, but it is also built on the Teddy Roosevelt-like vigor of its citizens and local self-reliance.

My wife, Melissa, and I, together with our neighbors, try to create experiences for our kids that build character. We want our kids to exercise their muscles and their minds.

We lack an educated, resilient citizenry capable of navigating the increasing complexities of daily life.

When I was a kid, we had airconditioning in the house... but we never used it.

At our house we have come to conclude that building and strengthening character will require extreme measures and the intentional pursuit of gritty work experiences.

A family's desire to be able to keep its health insurance when changing jobs or geography (a problem that Obamacare doesn't make any better, by the way) is perfectly reasonable.

Obamacare is not popular.

Democrats have long held an advantage over Republicans on health care, mostly due to a perceived empathy problem in my party.

Obamacare arrived also because Republicans failed to persuade the public that we could address the avalanche of problems government had already created by decades of interfering with the health-care market.

Obamacare cannot be fixed and Republicans must not extend this disastrous legislation.

We cannot let Obamacare expand geographically by setting up state exchanges, nor can we extend Obamacare's unlawful subsidies.

We must not extend nor expand Obamacare. We need a completely different solution to help those caught in the Obamacare snare.

Obamacare has eliminated choices for millions of families, suffocated patient-centered medical innovation, and moved the United States closer to European-style centralized planning.

The signers of the Declaration of Independence did not pledge their fortunes and sacred honor so the federal government could play 'helicopter parent' to a free people. They saw government as our shared project to secure liberty, doing a few big things and doing them well.

We must energetically tackle the significant problems the voters rightly want Washington to be addressing.

Republicans must sell a big-cause, problem-solving vision - low-ego and happy-warrior in tone.

In policy arena after policy arena, Democrats respond to every failure of clunky government by proposing the addition of still more layers to 1960s-era bureaucracies as they break down.

Good history is good story-telling. And good story-telling demands empathy; it requires understanding different actors, differing motivations, competing goals.