For years, polls, election results and efforts to gerrymander voting districts have inundated Americans with reminders about their deep divides.
Mix in the Trump administration’s executive orders over the last seven months — from slashing funding for science research, to yanking money for libraries, to deporting undocumented people without due process, to deploying hundreds of Marines to the streets of Los Angeles, to rolling back environmental protections — and it’s clear the nation’s norms, laws and policies are being upended.
All of this prompts the question: Do Americans still share the same values? It's tough to answer. But one point is clear. Clashes over civic values considered fundamental to American democracy are playing out each day.
KPBS checked in with a scientist, philosophers, a sociologist and a religious leader about how we’re doing societally in the practice of empathy, truth, authenticity, ethics, power and the agape form of love. And if we’re deficient in these values, can they be strengthened?
As could be expected, we’re not faring well with any of these values and that is weakening us. But, experts say, the principles can be revitalized.
UC San Diego philosophy Professor Craig Callender contends inequality is a big contributor to declining values, made even worse with the recent budget bill that will eliminate food stamps and Medicaid for millions of Americans, while giving tax cuts to the rich. In San Diego County, 100,000 people could end up uninsured and 60,000 without food stamps.
“There’s rising inequality and then there’s the acceleration of the inequality,” Callender said. “And so with rising inequality, you feel more vulnerable. And when you’re more vulnerable, it makes sense that you are less generous.”
On truth as a value, UC San Diego philosophy Professor Gila Sher isn’t ready to pronounce that we’ve fully crossed into a post-truth era, but she says we are close. And the existential threat that creates can’t be overstated.
“The consequence is that we are facing many dangers and the quality of our life reduces considerably,” Sher said. “You cannot trust your leaders to care about your safety, you cannot trust them to care about your humanity. You may live in a world which is inhuman, and for humans, this is very disturbing.”
Sher says she agrees with University of Connecticut philosophy Professor Michael Patrick Lynch, author of On Truth in Politics: Why Democracy Demands It.
“What he says, and I think he is right, is that for democracy to survive or to exist, it's very important that our political life is conducted not just in the sphere of power, but also in the sphere of reason,” Sher said. “When political life is conducted in the sphere of reason, truth becomes central, in the sphere of rationality, truth becomes central.”
For anyone tempted to dismiss the role of love — agape — in politics, Justine Sullivan, lead minister of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of San Diego, argues that it is “an essential ingredient of a healthy, functioning democracy,” as is justice. The two are intertwined.
“We can't work for justice if we don't care about our fellow humans,” Sullivan said. “Because what's happening now is we're reverting to a tribal mentality that lacks agape. So agape is for the people that there's no reason for you to love them, except that you share humanity. It's not about just taking care of your own. And I would say that we all belong to each other. So you are my own. I am committed to being there for you just because of our shared humanity.”
And neuroscientist William Mobley, founding institute director of the T. Denny Sanford Institute for Empathy and Compassion, uses science to emphasize that shared humanity.
“We’re a species, homo sapiens,” Mobley said. “We share DNA. We share everything. We share the need for food and water and shelter. We share the joy of seeing our children grow up. Tribalism will end when we decide that we are, all of us, in a tribe and it’s the same tribe.”
To cultivate empathy and compassion, Mobley advocates mindfulness mediation, social interaction and charity.
“Engaging in social events that bring you into contact with all kinds of people, some of whom are very different from you, but who may well benefit from your empathy,” Mobley said. “Volunteering at your church or in a hospital or some other setting. Volunteering to help homeless people. All of these focus on the ability to sit with someone and care for them and do it in a way that really is good for them and also good for yourself.”
Another theme that emerged in how to bolster civic values in America in 2025 was the importance of talking to people who don’t share your political perspectives. Sullivan says one of our tasks “as humans is to find ways to have hard conversations with safety.”
President Obama’s former speechwriter David Litt makes a similar point in a recent essay entitled “Is it time to stop snubbing your right-wing family?” for The New York Times.
He told KPBS that Americans speaking to one another across party lines is of premium value in a democracy.
“We have to figure out how to co-own this country together,” Litt said. “People feel passionately that they're right. I certainly have lots of opinions that I hold or where I say this is a matter of right and wrong. But in a democracy, you don't get to just say, ‘therefore, I won't listen to somebody else,’ or ‘therefore, we won't let their votes count,’ or ‘we won't find a way to listen to people if we don't agree with them.’ You have to figure out how to live together.”
Here is more on each of the values KPBS examined.
Click on the buttons to learn more about each value
Empathy
Empathy is feeling another’s emotions.
Neuroscientist William Mobley, founding institute director of the T. Denny Sanford Institute for Empathy and Compassion, says empathy is as native to humans as hearing, vision and taste.
While billionaire Elon Musk calls empathy “the fundamental weakness of Western civilization,” Mobley contends feeling empathy and acting on it are not just pivotal to our health but to humanity’s salvation.
He explains that the parts of the brain that activate when we are sad, distressed, happy and surprised also switch on when we see others in those states.
Compassion is acting on empathy. One example is over a quarter of San Diegans volunteer at hospitals, nursing homes, food pantries and animal shelters. The 2025 Compassion Report from the Muhammad Ali Center shows most Americans believe empathy and compassion toward marginalized groups are declining. Respondents felt the least compassion for undocumented people in the United States, convicted criminals and wealthier people.
Mobley blames lower levels of empathy on widespread feelings of being overwhelmed.
“We're at a point where there's just too much suffering, where we turn away from it and we just say, ‘well, homelessness is bad, war is bad, this is a hostile place to live. But I'm just one person, I need to try to live my life,’” Mobley said.But he challenges people to not look away from the horror because the images of others’ pain will still remain in the brain and reverberate.
“You begin to blunt your feelings even in your own environment,” Mobley said. “When you ignore discomfort, you begin to become less of the person that you could be, and you lose this opportunity to see the other person and become aware of them and care for them and be compassionate. And that hurts you just like it hurts the other person.”
He applies that principle to all of humanity, struggling with polarization. Now more than ever, Mobley said it’s important for people to talk to others who don’t look or think like them. But that first requires a commitment to empathy.
Truth
One of the most iconic and ominous lines from George Orwell’s novel "1984" is about truth. It reads: “The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
The impact of devaluing the truth on the U.S. is measurable.
Eighty percent of Americans have consumed false news and 23% say they’ve passed along fake stories, even though some knew they were untrue, according to a report by the data firm Demandsage.
UC San Diego philosophy Professor Gila Sher believes it’s too soon to judge whether we’re living in a fully post-truth era. But she is worried that as truth goes, so goes the health of American society and our very existence.
“It's very important that I'm told the truth about what things in the world are dangerous for me and what things are not,” Sher said. “This is important for survival.”
She calls truth a central value.
“If you trample the value of truth, you also trample the value of justice,” Sher said. “Justice because you don't recognize, first, what is justice and what is injustice, and second, what is really done, whether a particular action causes suffering or doesn't cause suffering. There's some domino effect. To keep one human value, you need to keep all human values.”
To stop that cascading effect, Sher advocates that Google remind people of the importance of truth during searches, that people commit to examining information critically and that they look to the great historical figures for inspiration. Sher said it’s both a group and individual effort.
“People, grownups, parents, teachers and leaders, and people with influential roles in the community should take it upon themselves to bring to the attention of the young generation how important human values are, including the human value of truth,” Sher said. “I think it's something that only we can do for ourselves.”
Sher added that democracy itself demands that people decide what is right and wrong, what is good and bad, what is the case and not the case. And that can’t happen without the truth.
Authenticity
Authenticity is a group of attributes deemed truthful and genuine. It’s a catchword tossed around a lot in recent years. But even Plato stressed the importance of discerning authenticity from fakery 2,500 years ago.
Erica Bailey, assistant professor in management of organizations at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, studies the construct of authenticity.
She says authenticity is strongly linked to an individual’s and a society’s well-being. People crave authenticity in their candidates. Bailey says voters believed President Trump saw them, heard them and felt their economic pain. And that’s why he rose to power. But she contends a truer measure of authenticity is when words match deeds. Cuts to Medicaid and food stamps in the recently passed tax and spending bill, as well as the Supreme Court’s expansion of presidential power, might weaken Trump and Republicans’ authenticity.
“That brings in the suspicion of ‘what else are you doing? Who else are you listening to?’” Bailey said. “Similarly, with the Supreme Court, we can see the logic, but it doesn't align with what people perceive the mission of their role to be. Then that raises the question, ‘why are they doing this?’ I think that's where the cynical view can come in, that they're completely being inauthentic to what we've elected them to be, which is some superior level of morality above us.”
Bailey said the gap between what politicians say and what they actually do is an authenticity crisis. The antidote, she says, is improving our own genuineness with fellow citizens regardless of political party affiliation. Engage and assume each side is speaking in good faith. Give authenticity and believe you’re getting it.
“People do really want the truth, and we really want to right the wrongs,” Bailey said. “Coming together helps us see that we can do that. And what has started to happen is, I do think people are realizing they do have some power. And when we do speak with one voice, it does seem to be that things are slightly moving.” Bailey said the more both Democrats and Republicans join forces, the more their distrust of one another will decrease. But without the effort, American society won’t be as productive or successful as it can be.
Ethics
French philosopher Albert Camus once said “A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world.”
But Americans hold a dim view of its institutions’ ethics. A Gallup poll shows their faith in the ethics of Congress, journalists, clergy and business executives is low.
UC San Diego philosophy Professor Craig Callender defines ethics as norms and principles to live by that are morally right, such as do no harm. He describes ethics as a powerful and vital force in any society.
Callender, who is also co-director of the Institute of Practical Ethics at UC San Diego, said in daily life, ethics matter to Americans, regardless of their socio-political beliefs. But as a whole, Callender said yardsticks like undoing policies to lessen climate change, inequitable healthcare and the growing gap between the rich and poor show American society is ethically challenged.
“For instance, this latest bill takes money basically from the poor and gives it to the rich, when there's already so much inequality, and I think that explains a lot of what's going on,” Callender said. “I think it also is related to the question, is ethics on the decline?’” To Callender, the answer is yes. But he also asserts that a nation’s ethics can be rebuilt. He advocates teaching ethics in school. He believes solving the inequality problem can help restore ethics. And he says it’s crucial to work toward a deliberative democracy instead of one ruled by a majority that is “ill-informed.”
“A deliberative democracy is one where the majority rules based on well-informed, well-formed, deliberate preferences,” Callender said. “And so that's a huge difference, because here you see we have a lot of preferences that I would say are not well-formed ones. They're not based on evidence deliberation. That's ruling the day. Whereas, what we really need are not just universities, but education and journalism to create a system that can make it have well-formed preferences.” Callender adds that the government and the people won’t ever reach perfect agreement on the big issues. But we still have to act.
Power
Civil rights leader Martin Luther King said power is “the strength required to bring about social, political, or economic changes.”
Justine Sullivan, lead minister of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of San Diego, believes that the powerful in America are making a difference in those arenas. But it’s the wrong kind.
Sullivan sees first hand how power or the lack of it plays out among her congregants. She defines power as access to resources and the ability to make things happen for ourselves. And that kind of power is taking blow after blow. Sullivan points to working families losing aid while the rich get tax cuts. This is on top of the already unbalanced wealth structure. Nearly $80 trillion in wealth has been transferred from most Americans to the richest 1% in the last 50 years. Sullivan also offers the example of deportations of undocumented people without due process.
“It's an irresponsible exercise of power based on a worldview that I do not share,” she said. “I do not share the idea that there is not enough to go around and that we have to take care of our own before we offer it to others.” She says Americans can exercise their own power by speaking out against injustices. She believes it’s especially incumbent on people of privilege to use their position to help those less fortunate.
“If I don't use my power on behalf of whatever I can, if I don't move whatever levers I have to try to make it better, then I am complicit,” she said.
Sullivan argues that to effectively take back their power, Americans must stop warring among themselves and putting one another through purity tests, requiring everyone to agree on everything all the time.
Agape
Former President Jimmy Carter once said a person should have a goal of “complete agape,” or self-sacrificial love. But he said the most that can be expected from a society was “simple justice.”
San Diegans routinely demonstrate agape.
When masked, armed ICE agents raided a San Diego Italian restaurant in May, people gathered around and yelled at them as they detained workers. When members of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of San Diego noticed people going hungry during the pandemic, they opened a food pantry. Today, they feed more than 500 families each Saturday.
“Martin Luther King famously said that power without love is abusive, and love without power is anemic,” said Justine Sullivan, lead minister of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of San Diego. She sees people’s kindness and love for one another daily. But as a society, Sullivan believes the United States is losing agape. She cites deportations, extreme inequality and the shutdown of most United States Agency for International Development programs that provide aid to foreign countries, which is projected to cost millions of lives worldwide. She argues all of these events are changing Americans and their character.“I see it every day in the way that people speak to one another,” Sullivan said. “It's so coarse. And that's why I think turning on one another is so dangerous. It's not just unpleasant, I think it actually does harm because what we're doing is we're letting the hate come in because we've been given permission.”
