Midterm Elections

American Purpose has just turned two years old. We reprint today an editorial excerpt by our colleague Suzanne Garment from the time of our start. Details change, but the foundational challenges faced by America remain very much the same. Read Suzanne then. Reflect with us today—and vote. The fight is still on and American Purpose is still at it.

As Suzanne wrote:

“Whoever wins this election, we won’t be far from where we were before. We’ll be left with the huge gulfs between segments of our population and between the official account of the state of the nation and the country’s condition as Americans experience it.

"So, what now? There’s nothing for it but to start building back the missing pieces of the foundation. The role of a publication like American Purpose is to haul a few contributory bricks into place.

"We won’t be calling people Marxists or fascists (notwithstanding the fact that there are some of them out there). We’re going to have to live within the bounds of federalism, which will limit the reach of ambitious policies. We’ll have to recognize that the strongest political allegiance of most Americans is to their local communities, not some national party or ideology. We’ll have to make room, the believers and non-believers among us, for the critical role of religion in our national life. We’ll have to live with diversity and the limits it will place on the possibility of a single, shared civic religion. We’ll have to develop some empathy for people who are being left behind by our new technology-addled world.

"In short, we’ll have to grow up. If we manage to do that, maybe we won’t be stuck where we were before. American Purpose will try to do its part, and we hope you’ll join us.”

Read the 2020 editorial, "Rebuilding the Foundation."

Image: Unsplash: Element5Digital