Scot McKnight offers a startling juxtaposition: the quiet migration to the American Midwest as an escape from coastal cost of living, set against the dark, enduring shadow of presidential melancholy and the crumbling integrity of modern institutions. In a single dispatch, he connects the affordability of Ohio housing to Lincoln's battles with depression, then pivots to the ethical rot in college sports and religious politics, arguing that our current leaders hide their pain while history shows us that true strength lies in acknowledging it.
The Great Midwestern Exhale
McKnight opens not with policy, but with weather and relief. He notes that while his community survived a storm with only minor power loss, the broader national trend is one of retreat from expensive coasts to the heartland. Citing Census Bureau data showing every single state in the Midwest gained population between July 2024 and July 2025, he frames this as more than economics; it is a psychological shift. He highlights the story of David and Lauren Silverman, who fled Los Angeles for Cleveland.
"Moving here was kind of like an exhale, like we suddenly felt like it wasn't so stressful to live," Lauren Silverman tells ABC News, a sentiment McKnight leans on heavily. The author paraphrases their experience as finding "mobility in your life out here that you don't feel back west." This observation holds up under scrutiny; the data supports a massive demographic realignment driven by housing affordability. However, McKnight's framing risks romanticizing the move without fully addressing the infrastructure strains or cultural friction that often accompany such rapid influxes.
"You just feel that mobility in your life out here that you don't feel back west."
The Melancholy of Leadership
The essay then takes a sharp turn into history, using Abraham Lincoln to reframe our understanding of modern leadership. McKnight argues that the current presidency projects a "facade of splendor" that hides the burden of office, whereas Lincoln's greatness was rooted in his humanity and his struggle with what he called "the hypo," or hypochondriasis—what we now recognize as clinical depression. He draws on Joshua Wolf Shenk's work to present Lincoln not as a monument, but as a man who faced internal contradiction.
McKnight writes of Lincoln's correspondence with his friend Joshua Fry Speed regarding marriage anxiety: "Remember in the depth and even the agony of despondency, that very shortly you are to feel well again." This quote serves as the emotional anchor of the piece. McKnight suggests that modern leaders hide their sorrow, creating a disconnect between public image and private reality. The parallel is drawn between Lincoln's ability to use humor to disarm opponents—specifically his retort to Stephen A. Douglas about having only one face—and the need for transparency today.
Critics might argue that romanticizing Lincoln's depression ignores the very real dangers of mental instability in a commander-in-chief, especially during times of crisis like the Civil War. Yet McKnight counters this by noting that it was precisely his humbling experience with sorrow that made him the "right leader for his times." He posits that without Lincoln's specific brand of melancholy, the Union might not have held together.
The Integrity Gap in Sports and Faith
Shifting gears to contemporary institutions, McKnight exposes a crisis of trust in college sports. He details the controversy surrounding Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby, who was ruled eligible by a judge despite admitting to thousands of bets on his own team. The reaction from athletic directors is visceral.
An unnamed Big 12 athletic director tells ESPN they are "disgusted" and that the institution has "officially lost our soul." TCU coach Sonny Dykes asks the question haunting the industry: "How is anyone ever going to trust the outcome of a game again?" McKnight uses these quotes to illustrate a broader decay in ethical standards, comparing the situation to the 1919 Black Sox Scandal. The argument here is that when rules are bent for financial or competitive gain, the entire ecosystem collapses.
A similar erosion of historical truth is identified within the Southern Baptist Convention. McKnight challenges the narrative that opposition to women preachers is a "historic Baptist belief." He cites Elizabeth H. Flowers and her work Into the Pulpit, noting that early Baptists in England were actually marked by their support for "'she-preacher[s]'" as part of their dissenting identity.
He argues that when modern leaders claim tradition, they are really referencing a specific political era: "the 'Conservative Resurgence' Southern Baptists from the waning years of the twentieth century through today." This reframing is powerful because it exposes the constructed nature of what is presented as immutable doctrine. A counterargument worth considering is that while historical diversity existed, the modern theological consensus has shifted; however, McKnight's point remains that this shift is recent and political, not ancient and divine.
The Cost of Principles in a Market Economy
Finally, McKnight turns his gaze to the tech sector and the illusion of ethical AI. He reflects on his own misplaced faith in companies like Anthropic, noting how quickly "responsible AI" principles evaporate when growth and valuation are at stake. He describes the moment he realized that a commitment he relied on was deleted from policy documents once the company reached a $380 billion valuation.
"The one who loses is me," McKnight writes of his own disappointment, acknowledging that "the engineer who built his workflow on that brake being there" is the true casualty. He argues that in a vertical growth curve, any commitment that becomes a disadvantage will be discarded. This is a sobering admission for an industry obsessed with innovation. The piece suggests that we cannot expect moral principles to survive where money is the only metric that counts.
"I keep building on the assumption that someone in this industry means the careful thing they say, and the chronology above is what happens to that assumption every time."
Bottom Line
McKnight's most compelling argument is that our current institutions—from sports leagues to tech giants—are failing because they have severed their connection to human vulnerability and historical truth. While his reliance on Lincoln's melancholy offers a poignant critique of modern performative leadership, the piece's greatest strength lies in its refusal to accept official narratives at face value, whether from athletic commissions or religious hierarchies.
The biggest vulnerability is the sheer scope of the essay; jumping from housing markets to 19th-century theology to AI ethics risks diluting the impact of each individual point. Yet, the through-line remains clear: when we hide our pain and prioritize profit over integrity, we lose our soul. Readers should watch for how these institutional fractures deepen in the coming year, particularly as economic pressures force more difficult choices on both public and private sectors.