Our Public Service is Being Destroyed
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.
Primed to Panic: The Biden Debate Narrative Debacle
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?
Fixing Our National Debt Means Clarifying Our Priorities
The country’s soaring national debt is not just a testament to our lack of fiscal responsibility but also a reflection of our loss of national identity. Fixing the debt problem so that it no longer threatens a national economic crisis is an opportunity to [...]
Mixing Religion and Politics
Some people don't think that politics and religion mix. Public figures like Bill Maher can be incredibly disrespectful and dismissive on this topic, and the nation’s founders were divided on the issue. But it’s religion, the expression of personal faith, that is the lifeblood [...]
How the Red-Blue Narrative Kept Us from the Real Story of Rising Extremism in a Fracturing GOP
The takeover of the Republican Party by anti-democracy extremists and the intra-party friction it generated, on full display in the House of Representatives’ battles over the House speakership this year, has been the big political story of this century. Only now is the story [...]
Reflections on Poverty and Political Will
Intern Rachel Roncka discusses the co-existence of extreme wealth and poverty and the lack of political will to change the status quo. As a summer intern with The American Leader, I set out to conduct research on the state of economic inequality [...]
Public History as a Guide to Decision-making
Public historian Adina Langer explains why she supports The American Leader, first as a member of the board and now as an editorial advisor. I became a public historian because I find that the world of the anthropocene (the age of human [...]
Countering Authoritarianism in the US and Elsewhere
Although difficult to sustain, democracy builds its foundations on diversity and on the contest of ideas in the political space. Today, this very idea of diversity within a democracy has become a ubiquitous wedge issue that has fueled authoritarian, ethnonationalist, and xenophobic movements in [...]
Just Words: The Authoritarian Nationalist Freedom Caucus
Contrary to most political and media expectations, democracy stood its ground in the November elections. But even before all the votes were counted and the celebrations subsided, the Washington Post unintentionally gave us a reminder of one big reason why this country remains in [...]
America is an Inclusive Democracy
If you haven’t yet realized that we are beyond politics as usual, consider the reaction we had after posting our updated problem brief, Threats to Voting Rights, to Facebook: Someone posted in reply “#WeAreNOTaDemocracy” and within moments, someone else had liked the post. America [...]
January 6: The Future We Choose
Americans are facing a choice between government by a frequently shifting set of powers that are reliant on a constant framework for rulemaking (“democracy”) and one immoveable power that bends the rules at will to suit its needs (“authoritarianism”). When my daughter sought her [...]
Our National Priorities
What are our national priorities? Fiscal responsibility, apparently, is not one of them. Otherwise, Republicans in Congress would not use the debt ceiling – and the threat of default – as a bargaining chip. Or is it less a bargaining chip and more a device [...]
