The American Ideology Project
The American Ideology Project
America is not a nation of blood or soil.
Nor is it an abstract, universal idea.
It is an idea incarnate.
A promise given form through the institutions and practices of a people committed to making it real, generation after generation.
What is the American Ideology? Or—as many would ask first—is there one at all? How could the only nation founded on a creed not have an ideology? Unlike nations forged from ethnicity, geography, or shared cultural traditions, America was founded explicitly on a set of ideas—making it not merely a nation with an ideology, but arguably the first true ideology. I define an ideology as a coherent system of normative beliefs about how society should be organized, paired with a methodology for realizing them—a philosophical premise joined to a structural program. The American Ideology contains both dimensions in its founding documents: the Declaration articulates our creed, while the Constitution is the blueprint for putting it into practice. Each dimension is a continuum bounded at its ends by tensional ideas—creative oppositions whose management, not resolution, defines the American project. What this framework offers, then, is not another theory of American politics but a systematic method for interpreting the one we have. It maps the two axes along which American political thought actually moves—the philosophical tension between liberty and equality, and the structural tension between the Democratic and National Ideas—and identifies the four cardinal values that emerge at their intersection. The result is a diagnostic tool: a way to read our politics not as a pendulum between opposing ideologies, but as continual recalibration within a single ideological framework.
How strongly do you think you believe in the American Ideology?
It doesn't matter if you are a Democrat or Republican, we've always shared an underlying set of values and "habits of the heart" that are uniquely American. The question to ask ourselves in this moment: do we still believe in America?
OUR MISSION
01 SUBSTACK SERIES
America Ideologue is a new Substack series that introduces a bold and timely thesis: that America is, and has always been, defined by a coherent—if often unspoken—ideology.
02 AMERICAN IDEOLOGY 101
American Ideology 101 is an interactive online seminar that explores the first real ideology. Through short lectures, essays, historical deep-dives, interactive discussions, and curated reading lists, participants will engage with a new analytic framework for understanding the American Ideology and how we have relied upon it throughout our history.
03 EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES
Curriculum and educational materials for secondary and higher education will be available for license. We are also designing free materials for non-profit civic, religious and other groups seeking to ground Americans in their ideological heritage.
01 IDEOLOGY SURVEY LAB
The American Ideologue Survey Lab is an open-source research project designed to measure the strength, structure, and survival of the American Ideology in the 21st century. A collaborative space for scholars, pollsters, and civic-minded citizens to contribute to question design., survey methodology and analysis plan.
02 THE IDEOLOGY INDEX
We are building a comprehensive, transparent, and evolving survey model that maps how the four core values still live (or fail to live) in the American mind and experience. Drawing on decades of political science, survey research, and statistical modeling, this project aims to define the core constructs of the American Ideology in testable, measurable terms, develop and crowdsource a set of validated, rigorous questions and indices, and diagnose the ideological health of the country by linking values to behavior, identity, and belief.
03 IDEOLOGY TYPOLOGY
Once data starts coming in, we will create a tool like Pew’s “Political Typology Quiz” where users answer a short battery of questions and are placed in a quadrant or segment of the American Ideologue map.
04 OPEN SOURCE DATA
We are committed to deploying the tools openly, inviting scholars, journalists, civic educators, and citizens to use and interpret the data. This is civic infrastructure, not a proprietary product. However, we need support for generous foundations and donors to fund the data collection. We are also open to partnerships with University survey research centers.
01 STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS
We believe the American Ideology cannot be reclaimed in isolation. It requires a broad, cross-sector coalition of institutions, scholars, civic organizations, educators, journalists, and public leaders committed to renewing the nation’s civic center. Through strategic partnerships, we aim to build a living network of collaborators who recognize that ideological coherence—not partisan loyalty—is the key to restoring public trust, democratic functionality, and cultural confidence. This initiative welcomes pilot programs, co-branded research, and civic literacy efforts that bring the core values of the American tradition back to life in schools, media, congregations, and communities.
02 TRANSLATION PROJECT
To bridge the great divide in American life, we must speak in a language both sides can hear. The Translation Project takes the four cardinal values of the American Ideology—communitarian individualism, moral and social equality, republicanism, and federalism—and renders them in the moral and political languages of both red and blue America. This is not spin; it is translation in the truest sense—making our shared inheritance intelligible again across lines of difference. Through essays, tools, media collaborations, and community-based workshops, this project shows how Americans who seem ideologically opposed often live by the same values, if only they could recognize them.
03 ANNUAL REPORT
Each year, we will produce a comprehensive Annual Report on the Health of the American Ideology—a civic diagnostic that measures the state of our shared commitments. Drawing on original survey research, behavioral data, and cultural analysis, the report will track how the four ideological values are reflected (or missing) in American political discourse, institutional trust, civic engagement, and social cohesion. It will also feature public-facing insights, visualizations, and recommendations—offering both a mirror and a map for those seeking to restore ideological balance and national purpose.
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Dedicated to the Memory of
Dr. Everett Carll Ladd
1937-1999