Step back for a moment from the post-election second-guessing and look at the common threads that the election revealed: that the United States has split into warring camps that barely understand each other; that, as noted in one recent poll, a large part of the electorate views the opposing political party as "downright evil;" that many have experienced social isolation and alienation which, at times, has turned into outright anger at others in their communities.

Underlying all these is a collapse in connections between — and compassion for — each other.

No one can wave a wand that will reverse deep-seeded social trends, but on this issue there is a way to take advantage of unused potential that exists almost everywhere in our country: community centers.

As the sociologist Robert Putnam wrote more than 20 years ago in his landmark book, "Bowling Alone," we have changed from a nation of joiners and connectors to a nation of people who stay home and view each other from a skeptical — and now often hostile — distance. Putnam presciently predicted that this trend would be a threat to democracy, writing that “democratic disarray” can be directly linked to erosion of civic engagement.

More recently, part of Putnam’s proposed solution........

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