The persistence and resilience to “hold the course”
Our path has not been perfect, but we have kept working at fully realizing our founding vision for everyone, which has given us the second foundation block of America’s greatness. The model provided to others around the world – from our founding to the present – has been to persevere and keep grinding to fully realize the founding dream. It has been to have the courage and will to keep facing our gaps and commit to “holding the course” in order to pursue the original vision.
It comes from continuing to work at achieving the founding vision, being secure enough to acknowledge that we aren’t there yet, and that we have made mistakes on the path. Our history is full of indefensible discrimination, injustice, and violence. We have poverty, crime, and inequality. America’s greatness comes from being secure enough to acknowledge the gaps combined with the courage to work relentlessly to close them.
Ironically, denying that we have made mistakes actually denies American Greatness and does not acknowledge just how tough the path is and how much it takes to keep pursuing the original vision.
We have not fully achieved the dream, but neither have we stopped pursuing it . We have not given up and handed over our responsibility (and our freedom) as citizens of a democracy to the false promises of a despot. A critical mass of Americans did not give up in the face of difficulty, anxiety, frustration, and setbacks. They took the inevitable hits and kept going.
Our strength has been in continuing to fight to “right the wrongs”, not to deny or defend them. The critical point is that we have shown the commitment and courage to acknowledge and confront the significant gaps. America is great because we are secure enough to say with confidence:
Although we have had a mixed history of progress and backsliding, America has been working at realizing the founding principles and values ever since its beginning. It has been a relentless challenge to choose the right trajectory and to persevere despite a disappointing pace with lots of small and large ups and downs – progress and back-sliding, but no quitting.
Our challenge is to celebrate hard won progress and – at the same time – keep acknowledging where we have come up short in fully realizing America’s promise. And to learn from the experience and keep grinding to fully realize the vision. That is the second foundation block on which American Greatness stands.
The American story is not linear—it is a contested, ongoing effort to close the gap between promise and reality. There is a set of natural “dynamic tensions” (tensions that never fully resolve in one direction or the other). These constantly pull in different directions, which can be frustrating, but which keep a dynamic balance and serve as a source of creative energy in the democracy.
Over the last 250 years, the United States has made major progress in realizing the promise of its founding—freedom, equality, and self-government—but that progress has been uneven and continually challenged by forces that have undermined it. The founding promise of America—liberty, equality, and democracy—has been a powerful ideal that has inspired both great progress and fierce resistance.
Real gains have been made through struggle, reform, and activism, often led by ordinary citizens pushing the nation to live up to its ideals. At the same time, entrenched interests, systemic inequalities, and anti-democratic forces have repeatedly slowed or reversed progress.
The last 250 years of the American experiment in democracy have been marked by a powerful tension between progress toward realizing democratic ideals and forces that have sought to undermine or reverse those gains.
Building on the Constitution and Declaration of Independence
Most of our democratic institutions have been tested, over time, sometimes severely – but they have held. A key to healthy democracies is the peaceful transfer of power. The rule of law and judicial independence has been consistently demonstrated. The electorate has been dramatically broadened since our founding. The rule of law has been upheld, and the press has remained free.
We have plenty of room for improvement in all of those areas, but we have never given up and let them go.
The fundamental principle that “all ‘men’ are created equal” has been honored over 250-years to include the end of slavery (the 13th amendment), women’s suffrage (the 19th amendment), the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and legislation to protect the rights of people with a diversity of natures, lifestyles and abilities/disabilities.
Americans found a way to create the world’s largest economy, providing social and economic mobility and fueled by an educated workforce, consistent waves of immigration, and the creativity and innovation of people in a democracy.
This was a central issue at our founding and continues to today. The trajectory has been slowly and sporadically positive over 250 years, but it is still a fundamental challenge – from the founding where slaves were counted as 3/5 of a person, through the Civil War, the Jim Crow
Who is “an American” has always been an issue, from the founding to today. Every immigrant group, except perhaps northern Europeans, has had to struggle with our nativism and xenophobia to be accepted as “American.” The treatment of two populations is illustrative of this dynamic and a fundamental level. The treatment of indigenous people has been a history of forced displacement, broken treaties, and cultural erasure – and is an ongoing and largely invisible example of exclusion and inequality undermining the American experiment.
These dynamics have also shown progress over the last 250 years, but they are still a fundamental issue, and the trajectory now is not good. Gerrymandering, big dark money, voter suppression and attacks on the legitimacy of elections are currently powerful forces undermining our democracy.
This is another area where the current trajectory is not healthy. The fragmentation of media, the decline of local media, the rise of disinformation, and the attacks on journalism have combined to undermine a common sense of the truth.
Surprisingly, there has always been a strong current of authoritarianism in America, and it has currently come to the forefront and is challenging the fundamental nature of the American experiment. The rise of extremism and political violence, the erosion of widely held democratic norms, and the attacks on democratic institutions (the judiciary, the press, independent agencies, etc.) have all led down the path to authoritarian rule and the end of the American experiment.
Democracy in America has never been static—it’s a constant push-and-pull between naturally competing forces. One of the reasons that democracies are so hard is that they come with a lot of uncertainties and a lot of what are called “dynamic tensions.” Dynamic tensions are natural forces that pull in different directions and cause tension. They are called “dynamic” because these tensions are never fully resolved one way or another.
It’s like a big rubber band that is stretched. There is a natural desire to have the tension resolve one way or another, but that doesn’t happen with the dynamic tensions in a democracy. If it did, the result would be extremes of one type or another – extreme liberalism or conservatism
But the dynamic tension is one reason democracies are so creative. Plus, if these tensions are resolved completely – in either direction – the actual results are not good.
The best balance points are near the middle – varying to one side or the other and coming back. Go too far and snap or reaction as tension increases and then snaps back probably too far the other way.
On a national level there is a set of dynamic tensions that are normal and natural. For example:
Those naturally competing forces will always exist, so the challenge is in managing them – and that has played out throughout our 250-year trajectory. Sometimes we have done it well and sometimes we have not. But we have never given up. The results of all the dynamic tensions and winding path is an America whose values and perseverance have been tested and where the country has continued to make progress overall in realizing the founding vision.
As citizens of a democracy, we live with these dynamic tensions and understand their purpose and manage them as best we can. As subjects of an authoritarian regime, we would be told how they will resolve and will have nothing to say about it.
Just as the nation deals with natural dynamic tensions, so must individuals. On the list below the factors on the left tend to support us in acting from our larger selves. The factors on the right tend to support us in acting from our smaller selves.
Because the nature of dynamic tensions is that they never fully resolve one way of the other and are consistently in play, we are consistently challenged as individual citizens to manage these dynamic tensions so that we can be fully engaged and bring our best to bear.
The factors below are common personal dynamic tensions that we manage:
Managing these dynamic tensions to act from our larger selves is a surprisingly tough challenge. It is a commitment to ourselves, and a commitment to being citizens of a democracy. It is the personal part of our “no quit” trajectory as a democracy – the perseverance and resilience necessary to “hold the course” and say “no” to becoming subjects of authoritarian rule.
