A dawn reflection at the Lincoln Memorial reveals how stone, scripture, and sacrifice unite America’s creed, its sins, and its enduring promise.

This companion to Chapter 6 (Communitarian Individualism) explores how America’s long tradition of physical and social mobility served as the engine of its unique ideological synthesis: liberty in motion, constrained by voluntary obligation. Drawing on historical data, cultural memory, and contemporary signals—from Nomadland to declining driver’s license rates—it argues that as Americans stop moving, they lose not just opportunity but identity. When mobility fades, so too doe

What does liberty look like in practice? In Part 2 of this series, explore the five civic habits that embodied American communitarian individualism—and why their erosion is a deeper crisis than we realize.

Explore how the American tradition forged liberty not as radical autonomy, but as a moral and civic practice rooted in covenant, community, and responsibility. The first in a two-part series on communitarian individualism.

The American Ideology is not a fixed doctrine, but a system of tensions—between liberty and equality, and between national authority and democratic participation. Our founding documents institutionalize these tensions, giving the United States a moral and political order that is deliberately calibrated, not perfectly resolved. Understanding these axes is the key to understanding America itself.

If there is such a thing as an American Ideology—how have scholars historically understood it? What models have they proposed to define it?

Why have the institutions most central to American political life—the Democratic and Republican parties—functioned for so long without the anchoring force of ideology? Perhaps it’s because the parties already had an ideology at their disposal—one they didn’t invent, but inherited.

What is ideology? This post traces its origin from Enlightenment optimism to modern misuse, and argues why understanding it is vital to American survival...

Reader Guide: What Is Ideology? Origins, Misuse, and American Application

This companion guide explores the decline of civic engagement through key thinkers: Putnam, Tocqueville, Bellah, and Reagan; and what their insights mean today...

I have been worried about the health of the American Ideology since the topic itself captured my imagination thirty years ago.

There is an American ideology. It is not only real, I believe we need it now more than ever.