Richard Haass has had his “we’ve met the enemy” moment. In October, the former diplomat and longtime Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) president announced that he would soon be giving up one of the Western world’s most coveted think tank sinecures (and a $1.7 million salary). “I’ve come to think that the biggest national security threat facing the United States is not Russia or China or climate change, but ourselves,” he told the New York Times after announcing his planned departure.

Under Haass’s recently named successor, former banking executive and Obama trade representative Michael Froman, the infamously secretive organization will reportedly “continue a shift begun under Mr. Haass toward informing a broader part of the American electorate.” Haass’s new bestseller, The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens, is a product of this domestic turn. The book — an appeal to “centrist, civil, reasonable Americans,” as Haass put it in an interview with fellow centrist Yascha Mounk — wagers that if only the right political habits were “adopted by a preponderance of citizens,” it “would go a long way toward fixing American democracy.” Conveniently, these habits turn out to be exactly the ones that flatter Haass’s moribund political sensibilities.