Democracy versus privilege is the unresolvable central conflict of American life.

Evidence

In which case, the price of equality, or at least of the promise of an equal society, is vigilance against those who would make government the tool of hierarchy. And, in turn, we must recognize that this struggle—to secure democracy against privilege on the one hand, and to secure privilege against democracy on the other—is the unresolvable conflict of American life. It is the push and pull that will last for as long as the republic stands. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 664

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A genuinely paradigm-framing thesis: the author names the permanent structural tension that organizes the whole project’s argument about America.