On a 2025 episode of the “What Now? with Trevor Noah” podcast, Noah’s guest was Robert Putnam, the Harvard professor who wrote the classic Bowling Alone 25 years ago.
It was relevant then and even more relevant today. Putnam shows how civic life has eroded badly in the United States. “Social capital,” — the civic trust we once had—has plummeted. He uses the decline of bowling leagues as a central metaphor: Americans still bowl, but increasingly alone rather than in organized groups coming together to do an activity.
The show unpacked how Trump exploited social isolation in the 2024 election by creating a new club of sorts. The president made millions of disenchanted people, across demographic lines, feel heard. From the white nationalists to unchurched Black men without a college degree, he wanted, as Noah noted, to just dance with people at a rally and not talk about public policy.
Trump offered belonging. Democracy should too. The social/interpersonal bonds are what keep the “bowling league” together, committed, and in it for the long haul.
The collective we–Democrats, Republicans, and Independents– should carve out a small amount of time regularly -an hour a week or month—to make sure we’re doing something together—not just complaining about the state of affairs on social media.
Putnam’s career argument is the urgent need, as a whole society, to restore bridging experiences with people outside of your homogenous silo.
His prescription is to restore the modern day bowling league–not literally but the utility of it– through three action steps:
(1) Go young. It will be younger generations that figure out the new bowling league, likely a mix of IRL (in real life) and new tech platforms.
(2) Go local. “Bridging” to happen where people live, so they can share common problems and solutions.
(3) Go moral. Universal morality like the Golden Rule or another tenet that is about the civic “we,” not “me, me, me.”
Reconnecting people to each other is the required pretext to reviving American’ sense of civic duty, and a more respectful — and productive– agenda for government.
The Republican mayor of Oklahoma City, David Holt, led an effort to create a declaration, called the Oklahoma City Declaration, to say no more to political violence, dehumanizing rhetoric, and disinformation. Republican and Democratic mayors have signed the document.
Local leaders in business, faith communities, and academia should do something similar. Draw a line in the sand and get out your moral compass.