Jul 2, 2026 · 22 min · 8 segments
As America celebrates its 250th birthday, Rabbi Patrick explores a different path through our nation's political and cultural divisions: **Radical Pragmatism**. Drawing on the wisdom of Yitro's advice…
Patrick BeaulierHost
Our nation has survived civil war, depression, world wars, economic collapse, social upheaval, terrorism, pandemics, and political movements that have shaken our confidence in ourselves.
Whether you're for Mamdani or MAGA or neither or a little bit of both, I'm sure we can agree we have been through a lot, all capital letters.
You know, was America really founded if people are already here? And there were several communities, tribes, governments, kingdoms that existed.
And who should have come here? And for what reason? And were those legitimate reasons? And also what happens when you enslave people and you force them to come here? What do you call all that? So it's not easy, to say the least.
But right now, putting all of that off to the side for a minute, we live in an era where political disagreement has become moral condemnation, okay? So I was commenting on a Jewish comedian that I like, and I made this comment about, yeah, you know, gosh, look at where we are in our political system today, and boy, do people want to know what my secret thoughts were.
I mean, it got so kind of annoying that I actually unfollowed the comedian, which stinks because I really like their work.
So I guess maybe now there's people who are like, where's Rabbi Patrick? I want to know if he's secretly a this or secretly a that.
Like we can't even, we can't even like comment on comedians, Instagram accounts, right.
And yet, this is kind of fun, studies show that Americans generally agree on far more public policy than we imagine.
Large majorities support many of the same goals, so safe communities, affordable health care, good schools, protection of democracy, care for the vulnerable.
Our nation has survived civil war, depression, world wars, economic collapse, social upheaval, terrorism, pandemics, and political movements that have shaken our confidence in ourselves.
Whether you're for Mamdani or MAGA or neither or a little bit of both, I'm sure we can agree we have been through a lot, all capital letters.
You know, was America really founded if people are already here? And there were several communities, tribes, governments, kingdoms that existed.
And who should have come here? And for what reason? And were those legitimate reasons? And also what happens when you enslave people and you force them to come here? What do you call all that? So it's not easy, to say the least.
But right now, putting all of that off to the side for a minute, we live in an era where political disagreement has become moral condemnation, okay? So I was commenting on a Jewish comedian that I like, and I made this comment about, yeah, you know, gosh, look at where we are in our political system today, and boy, do people want to know what my secret thoughts were.
I mean, it got so kind of annoying that I actually unfollowed the comedian, which stinks because I really like their work.
So I guess maybe now there's people who are like, where's Rabbi Patrick? I want to know if he's secretly a this or secretly a that.
Like we can't even, we can't even like comment on comedians, Instagram accounts, right.
And yet, this is kind of fun, studies show that Americans generally agree on far more public policy than we imagine.
Large majorities support many of the same goals, so safe communities, affordable health care, good schools, protection of democracy, care for the vulnerable.
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