At the 2026 Hannah Arendt Forum at Bard College, journalist and author George Packer presented a personal and provocative examination of solidarity, the conference's central theme. Drawing on four decades of political involvement, reporting, and observation, Packer traced the disappearance of solidarity from American public life and said that its recovery could begin not with political movements or grand ideological commitments, but with neighbors defending their communities against powerful institutions.
Packer began with a recollection of his membership in the Democratic Socialists of America during the 1980s and 1990s. At the time, the organization was approaching extinction, reduced almost to a political book club. Nevertheless, members concluded their meetings by singing the labor anthem Solidarity Forever, set to the melody of The Battle Hymn of the Republic.
Packer remembered the emotional power of those gatherings. Members felt united with one another and imagined themselves part of an international working-class movement. Yet even then, he harbored a troubling question: Did the working class actually feel solidarity with them?
That question became increasingly important as Packer spent years reporting on American communities devastated by globalization and the Great Recession. Rather than solidarity, he encountered alienation—from government, economic institutions, political leaders, and even neighbors. People felt abandoned by those exercising power over their lives.
The arrival of social media promised new forms of connection, but Packer argued that its results were frequently destructive. Instead of cultivating mutual responsibility, online communities encouraged tribal loyalties and hostility toward outsiders.
True solidarity, he said, requires something deeper than agreement or shared resentment. It requires recognizing an obligation to others.
Even the COVID-19 pandemic failed to produce that recognition. A common biological threat might have reminded Americans of their shared vulnerability. Instead, disagreements over masks and public health became additional sources of political division.
Nevertheless, Packer found reasons for hope in two experiences during 2026.
The first occurred in Minneapolis, where residents organized to protect neighbors from federal immigration enforcement. People acted on behalf of friends, classmates, and strangers, motivated by their responsibility to the community.
Packer called this genuine solidarity because it involved people working together in a particular place, rather than expressing abstract commitments through political slogans.
His second example came from Clinton, Iowa, a Mississippi River community confronting plans for an enormous artificial intelligence data center. The proposed development would cover an area equivalent to 832 football fields.
Residents across the political spectrum—including MAGA supporters, conventional Republicans, Democrats, and progressives—organized against the project. Their opposition extended beyond concerns about noise, lighting, and environmental disruption. They resented the prospect of a distant technology corporation transforming their community without meaningful consultation.
For Packer, Minneapolis and Clinton revealed a common principle: solidarity emerges when people recognize that they share responsibility for a place and its future. Political differences do not disappear, but they become less important than the recognition that neighbors belong to one another.
Packer concluded by considering artificial intelligence itself. Perhaps AI could accomplish what the pandemic could not: awaken humanity to its shared vulnerability. AI offers extraordinary possibilities, but it also threatens human agency and the ability of ordinary people to control their lives.
In confronting that threat, Packer suggested, humanity might discover a solidarity extending beyond geography, nationality, and political affiliation. His argument echoed Hannah Arendt's insistence that political life depends upon people acting together in a shared world.
Solidarity, Packer reminded his audience, is not simply a feeling of agreement. It is the recognition of mutual obligation, expressed through common action. And perhaps the greatest challenge posed by artificial intelligence is whether humanity can recognize that obligation before surrendering too much of its power to machines and the institutions controlling them.
Solidarity is not created by ideological agreement but emerges when people exercise political freedom together.
