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Weaponized Narrative Initiative
Conversation Starters:
American Narrative
We have an American narrative. It is a story of high aspirations that aren't always met.
It begins with the Constitution, our operating manual. That document enumerates our rights, and so makes it clear, for example, that knocking down a reporter, or silencing a university speaker, is un-American.
It goes on to the Civil War, our great national conversation about who we are and where we are going, as Lincoln put it in the Gettysburg Address--and in his much darker Second Inaugual address. We are a government of the people, for the people, by the people. Or we should be. Yes, we are about great things, but we also have committed great sins.
World War II made it clear that we are against fascism and autocracy.
The Civil Rights movement again redeemed us and moved us forward.
There are reactionaries among us, of course, but they usually are speed bumps. Our challenge now is that for perhaps the first time in American history, we have one in the White House. I think we will survive him because the Founding Fathers designed the Constitution with people like him in mind, and so put in a powerful system of checks and balances. Also, as Aristotle says, oligarchies are usually of short duration.
Tom Ricks
National security advisor, New America think tank
Military history columnist, New York Times Book Review
Contributing editor, Foreign Policy magazine