Keeping the United States United

At Washington Conference, Studying What Divides and Unites Americans

Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor opened a conference on social cohesion in the United States by offering up the method of bringing people together she used as majority leader of the Arizona State Senate in the 1970s.

After work, she said, “I’d get everybody together and cook Mexican food, and we’d sit around outside and eat Mexican food and drink beer and make friends with each other. That worked.” So, the question, she continued, is “how can we as a nation sit around and eat Mexican food and drink …