Bulgaria has been deindustrialized by interest groups who extracted state assets like oil states extract the oil in their ground.

America is a nation of immigrants, but it is also a nation of people who never emigrate. Notably, Americans living outside the United States are not called emigrants, but 'expats.'

For the Kremlin, it is more feasible to preserve its great-power status in cooperation with the United States than in confrontation.

America gave the world the notion of the melting pot - an alchemical cooking device wherein diverse ethnic and religious groups voluntarily mix together, producing a new, American identity. And while critics may argue that the melting pot is a national myth, it has tenaciously informed the America's collective imagination.

Regimes like the one in Russia are stabilized by the fact that they have no ideology. There is really no ideological means to attack them.

Democracy has always been in crisis: democracy is all about practicing the art of bearable dissatisfaction. In democratic societies, people often complain about their leaders and their institutions. The gap between the ideal democracy and the existing one cannot be bridged.