The American Leader helps the public – our democracy’s citizen CEOs – be more informed decision makers, clarifying how systemic problems shape our lives, providing updates on the progress being made to solve them, and spotlighting the deep bench of leaders in politics, business, and our own communities whose bold efforts seek to bring about those solutions.
Leader Spotlight
Cedar Milazzo: Combating the Spread of Bad Information
2025-03-27T16:23:52-05:00Cedar Milazzo started a company to combat the spread of false, misleading, and dangerous information on the Internet. He and his team created a technology platform that can identify whether a web page contains credible or untrustworthy information. His challenge was to find an application for the technology that would sustain the business.
Progress Updates
It’s hard to make progress fixing our systemic problems when the government is organized to not just block progress on such matters as climate change and access to healthcare but to undermine and traumatize the very people responsible for addressing them.
Solar United Neighbors (SUN) recently rolled out a rebranded version of a group buying program that enables homeowners to install a solar energy system at up to a 25% discount. With a tax credit increased under the Inflation Reduction Act, homeowners are also able to claim up to 30% of the cost on their federal income tax return.
Viewpoints
All two+ million public servants in the federal government take an oath to support and defend the US Constitution and to faithfully carry out the duties of their office. During my twenty years as a diplomat with the US Agency for International Development (USAID), I and the public servants around me took our oath quite seriously. Nonetheless, the Trump administration has been dramatically disrupting and dismantling the public service, starting with USAID.
Joe Biden's deer-in-the-headlights moment during his debate with Donald Trump certainly was newsworthy and rightly raised questions about his fitness to serve. The real question, though, is why in the media’s coverage of the event did his poor performance at the beginning of the debate overshadow Trump’s flood of lies, vagueness on policy, refusal to unequivocally support the results of the election, and occasional incoherence?
Setting Priorities
“You do the math. You solve one problem, then you solve the next one and then the next
and if you solve enough problems you get to come home.”
– Matt Damon as Mark Watney, the astronaut stranded on Mars
in the film, The Martian, when asked how he survived
We have many critical problems today that need solving, but not every problem can be our top priority all at the same time. Our challenge is to establish a common set of priorities so that they don’t compete with each other for attention and resources. If we are successful, we won’t get to go home like Mark Watney, but we will make our home more politically, socially, and ecologically sustainable.
History and Analysis
Our Focus
The American Leader is a news and reference resource aimed at surfacing and keeping front-and-center the knowledge and aspiration needed to address the nation’s systemic problems – because solving those problems is how we protect our democracy. Often hidden beneath the surface of the 24/7 stream of headlines and attention seekers is a deep bench of American leaders who are attempting bold or innovative ideas to solve the systemic problems that shape our lives. Like noise-cancelling headphones, we eliminate the distortions, distractions, and obfuscations of the news cycle, so that you can learn from these leaders, get inspired, and do something that makes life a little better for your community.
Our Partners
