Will, this is such a beautifully written piece that captures something essential about what makes America work, or at least what made it work. Your reminder that our greatness flows from character rather than force resonates deeply, and your emphasis on mutual trust and moral restraint as the scaffolding of republican government is exactly right.
What strikes me most is your point about the conditionality of Franklin's response: "A republic—if you can keep it." That "if" is doing extraordinary work. It acknowledges that the architecture of our system—all those guardrails and institutions—can't function without something more fundamental underneath: a shared commitment to restraint even when we have the power to impose our will.
I find myself thinking about how this connects to something I've been grappling with in my own writing: the way polarization functions less as a bug in our current system and more as a feature that channels anger away from structural economic grievances toward cultural battles. Your point about precedents boomeranging is crucial here. When we use power simply because we can -- whether that's silencing opponents, bypassing institutions, or overriding individual liberty -- we're not just being shortsighted about the inevitable power shift. We're also often being distracted from deeper systemic problems that affect all of us, regardless of which "side" we're on.
Where I'd push back slightly -- or perhaps just add nuance -- is on the framing of our trust crisis as primarily a matter of choosing good faith over contempt. I think that's absolutely necessary, but not sufficient. The challenge is that our economic systems have fundamentally shifted from creating genuine pathways to prosperity into extraction mechanisms. When younger generations can't afford homes, are drowning in student debt, and face precarious employment prospects, the distrust isn't purely a failure of civic virtue. It's also a rational response to being systematically betrayed by institutions that promised opportunity but delivered extraction.
This doesn't excuse the dehumanization or the hatred. But I think recovering "the courage to be good" requires not just moral renewal but also confronting why so many Americans across the political spectrum feel the system has fundamentally failed them. Good faith becomes harder to sustain when you're struggling to keep your head above water while watching others accumulate unprecedented wealth.
That said, you're absolutely right that we can't hate others into believing what we believe. The question I'm left with is: how do we rebuild trust and practice restraint while also addressing the material conditions that make trust feel risky and restraint feel like a luxury? Because I suspect both are necessary for that long walk home you describe so eloquently at the end.
This is the million dollar question: "how do we rebuild trust and practice restraint while also addressing the material conditions that make trust feel risky and restraint feel like a luxury?"
Excellent analysis, thank you for sharing your thoughts. I couldn't agree more that polarization is a feature -- a distraction from unprecedented economic inequality. The question this raises for me is how to address the "chicken and the egg" problem that we need a civic renaissance to improve material conditions yet we need to improve material conditions to engender a civic renaissance. Depolarization isn't the goal, it's a tool. Can it be used to lay the groundwork for a superordinate goal? A country that "works" again, where the next generation can do better than the last.
Wilk, this resonates deeply. I’ve long believed that America’s greatness has never come from power or dominance, but from character, trust, and restraint. More than ten years ago, I wrote an essay called “What Is the Secret of America’s Success?” and reached much the same conclusion.
A nation that cannot disagree without hatred cannot remain free. Recovering the courage to be good again may be a long walk home—but it’s the only road worth taking. I am already talking about this in my speeches. My plan in 2026 is to travel more, connect more, and reach as many Americans as I can.
Wilk, I agree with you here, and I'm grateful you've taken the time to articulate this message for us all.
Not too long ago, as part of a segment we were preparing for our BA Debates Instagram, I responded to a prompt: "In this moment [in the wake of Charlie Kirk's murder], what are you afraid of losing?" I responded that the thing I'm most afraid of losing is our shared sense that as a people, as Americans, we're quite outgoing, friendly, and kind. I think these traits are a real part of our national connective tissue, but I worry that the more we see polarization around us, the more we'll lose the sense that they are distinctly American characteristics.
Part of the reason I'm in the courageous citizenship arena with you is because I believe our line of work can help preserve that reputation.
The pivotal argument in your well composed piece is this: "America’s greatness has always rested on ordinary people doing something extraordinary: disagreeing fiercely while remaining committed to the same constitutional order. Protecting liberty not only when it benefits us, but when it safeguards them."
this resonates well with one of my favorite documents of a 'Founder' tell us 'ordinary people' what the Founding intended, Jefferson's First Inaugural Address, where he said a lot - https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/jefinau1.asp - including this: "according to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. ..."
Jefferson reminds his audience of something some of them actually experienced in Europe - months, years, and decades of religious ideological civil wars, wars of conquest, genocidal wars (including against my ancestors who got to the 'new world' of the Virginia colony in the early part of the 18th century, bringing with them an ancient precious bible https://www.flickr.com/photos/wallyg/52155263408
Jefferson says that preserving the intentions of the American Founding relied on Enlightened reason/reasonableness. A Creator is not absent in the Founder's world view of Enlightened reason/reasonableness. But the Founders' Creator is not one who inspires religious intolerance and judgement-making that intends abuse, violence and others harms to follow Americans, or others. When Founders appealed to the Creator they hoped (and prayed) that Americans would support one another against 'religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered'.
Religious intolerance and its sibling political ideological intolerance are raging beasts all around us. And as Prophet Daniel observed in the 2nd century BC through waves of religious and political ideological intolerance of empire after empire in his world when religious powers and political powers combine GREAT BEASTS easily emerge.
We live in a relatable moment with Daniel, and others, where GREAT BEASTS desire their own vanity, fetishize their own power and glory, and command idolatry against the Creator, by doing what Jefferson said we must not forget, that "the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression."
It is hard for us 'ordinary people' to speak loud enough or act well enough - against such powerful BEASTS - to protect the liberties of others, because doing that protects our own liberties. Thank you for restating Jefferson's keep observation about the Founding in his First Inaugural.
Right on about trust and character. You identified the corrosive powers of hate and coercion well.
I’m not sure what the founders had in mind exactly, but they were aware of the pitfalls of both an electorate and a dictator disrupting a nation. I fear they did not see the full potential for minority rule. They could not have seen the technology that is now available to implement that.
I am trying to explore not only the distrust that is expressed by large groups, but how that is sown, how a few with little moral mooring can build coalitions to circumvent the traditions that got us this far. The balance I have not figured out is how to hear, respond, and take care of the smaller voices, with policies and programs that work for everyone. A step toward that might be the insight that listening to understand is not compliance. Or paraphrasing you, liberty that benefits individuals and safeguards all.
My thanks to you. And while I have the chance to communicate with you, thank you for the interview you had with Francis Collins. It gave real insight into how he thought.
Your essay "America Is Great Because WE Are Good" offers a sincere moral appeal at a moment when many Americans are exhausted by conflict. Your emphasis on trust, restraint, and civic decency resonates because those virtues are real — and endangered.
I believe moral appeals alone fail to preserve a republic. And this is where I feel your framing falls short.
You lean heavily on the idea that America's survival depends on renewed good faith across the political divide. That is true — as far as it goes. Yet you do not grapple with the harder reality that good faith is not always reciprocated, and that appeals to restraint can become liabilities when one side exploits them.
History is unambiguous on this point.
Alexis de Tocqueville did not believe democracies endure because citizens feel virtuous. He believed they endure because citizens practice self-government through institutions, associations, and sustained civic responsibility. Trust, in his account, was never sentimental. It was disciplined.
Abraham Lincoln understood this distinction viscerally. He spoke often of charity and reconciliation, yet when the constitutional order itself was threatened, he acted decisively. He did not confuse restraint with delay. He understood that preservation precedes reconciliation.
Martin Luther King Jr. was even more explicit. In Letter from Birmingham Jail, he warned that the greatest obstacle to justice was not extremism, but the white moderate who preferred "a negative peace which is the absence of tension" to a positive peace rooted in justice. King did not reject dialogue. He rejected comfort-seeking delay disguised as moral balance.
Your essay risks falling into precisely that trap.
By treating the current crisis primarily as a failure of mutual trust — rather than also as a failure of accountability — I fear you underestimate how democratic backsliding actually occurs. Republics do not usually fall because everyone stops being nice. They fall when norms are violated without consequence, when institutions hesitate to act, and when calls for restraint are applied asymmetrically.
This is where organizations like Braver Angels matter — and where they are often misunderstood.
Braver Angels was never designed to be an appeasement project. Its core discipline is disagreeing accurately without dehumanization, not suspending judgment or flattening moral distinctions. Civic trust, in this framework, is not the absence of tension. It is the capacity to hold tension inside defended rules.
Good faith is essential. It is also not self-enforcing. Without accountability, moral appeals become sermons delivered to those already inclined to listen — while others consolidate power unchecked.
You are right about what we need more of. It's just my opinion that it falls incomplete about what we need in addition.
A republic survives not only because its people aspire to be good, but also because they are willing to defend the structures that make goodness possible — even when that defense is uncomfortable, disruptive, and costly.
One quibble - but it's a pretty big one. It has to do with the source of our common rights. It's does not come from any 'creator'. The Constitution is unequivocal. Just read the preamble. Our shared rights and freedoms come from 'we the people' That's it. That's sufficient. All that follows this clarity in the Constitution about the source of authority and personal autonomy derives fully from 'we the people', e pluribus unum. Not so much as a peep is there in this Constitution about any need or recognition or hat tip towards any kind of divine authority. Doing so reverses where our rights originate, where legitimate authority comes from: not above but from below, from 'we the people'. That is why this was a revolutionary form of government. So it's REALLY important to not pretend some 'creator' grants or gives out or favors some kind of authority; it EXACTLY the other way around. But don't take my word for it; reread the Constitution and verify this for yourself. Don't import some other meaning or intention (or the Declaration) to try to justify the role of any 'creator'. Just read the thing. And comprehend why any mention of any religious notions of authority are utterly absent. This is by design.
Agreed. To supplement this comment, I want to add that the Golden Rule approximates a universally held value, fundamental to a wide range of sectarian and secular positions expressed by humans without necessary resort to other concepts or entities. The Golden Rule leads logically to such concepts as liberty, tolerance, and the equal protection of the law, as well as to "derate the hate."
And what we call the Golden Rule long predates Christian scripture. In fact, I argue the core precept - reciprocity - is very much a part of our biology and an important aspect of human evolution. One takes not only a huge shortcut by assigning such neurology to 'religious belief' but diverts us from exploring and understanding its unifying core function.
Yes, one can conceive of an era prior to written history in which one caveman communicates to another, "I won't club your child, if you won't club mine." Conversely, reliance upon said authorities of a deity or deities has been historically devisive and continues to be so today.
Wilk, you write, "A republic depends on more than elections. It depends on norms, guardrails, and institutions—but above all, it depends on mutual trust and moral restraint." Do you agree that the dissemination of truth rather than falsehoods exemplifies moral restraint? If so, do you also agree that the dissemination of truth rather than falsehoods by leaders of government would be beneficial to the establishment of moral trust while the opposite would be harmful to the establishment of moral trust?
Thank you Mr Wilkinson for the 'like'. But that seems vain and hollow in light of ICE killing an American citizen when that is not their domain of law enforcement ... in you own state, Minnesota. Mr Jefferson's CLARITY and WISDOM - above in the quote I lifted from his First Inaugural Address, requires government accountability for the killing. That accountability should be TRANSPARENT to the public and NOT BURDENED BY MAGA-Political partisan B-S, deep 'Left' partisan B-S, or any other B-S. That requires an INDEPENDEENT investigation, analysis and report, and most Braver Angels (I believe) would agree, as the MN governor has requested, wouldn't you think?
Will, this is such a beautifully written piece that captures something essential about what makes America work, or at least what made it work. Your reminder that our greatness flows from character rather than force resonates deeply, and your emphasis on mutual trust and moral restraint as the scaffolding of republican government is exactly right.
What strikes me most is your point about the conditionality of Franklin's response: "A republic—if you can keep it." That "if" is doing extraordinary work. It acknowledges that the architecture of our system—all those guardrails and institutions—can't function without something more fundamental underneath: a shared commitment to restraint even when we have the power to impose our will.
I find myself thinking about how this connects to something I've been grappling with in my own writing: the way polarization functions less as a bug in our current system and more as a feature that channels anger away from structural economic grievances toward cultural battles. Your point about precedents boomeranging is crucial here. When we use power simply because we can -- whether that's silencing opponents, bypassing institutions, or overriding individual liberty -- we're not just being shortsighted about the inevitable power shift. We're also often being distracted from deeper systemic problems that affect all of us, regardless of which "side" we're on.
Where I'd push back slightly -- or perhaps just add nuance -- is on the framing of our trust crisis as primarily a matter of choosing good faith over contempt. I think that's absolutely necessary, but not sufficient. The challenge is that our economic systems have fundamentally shifted from creating genuine pathways to prosperity into extraction mechanisms. When younger generations can't afford homes, are drowning in student debt, and face precarious employment prospects, the distrust isn't purely a failure of civic virtue. It's also a rational response to being systematically betrayed by institutions that promised opportunity but delivered extraction.
This doesn't excuse the dehumanization or the hatred. But I think recovering "the courage to be good" requires not just moral renewal but also confronting why so many Americans across the political spectrum feel the system has fundamentally failed them. Good faith becomes harder to sustain when you're struggling to keep your head above water while watching others accumulate unprecedented wealth.
That said, you're absolutely right that we can't hate others into believing what we believe. The question I'm left with is: how do we rebuild trust and practice restraint while also addressing the material conditions that make trust feel risky and restraint feel like a luxury? Because I suspect both are necessary for that long walk home you describe so eloquently at the end.
This is the million dollar question: "how do we rebuild trust and practice restraint while also addressing the material conditions that make trust feel risky and restraint feel like a luxury?"
Thank you, Monica!
Excellent analysis, thank you for sharing your thoughts. I couldn't agree more that polarization is a feature -- a distraction from unprecedented economic inequality. The question this raises for me is how to address the "chicken and the egg" problem that we need a civic renaissance to improve material conditions yet we need to improve material conditions to engender a civic renaissance. Depolarization isn't the goal, it's a tool. Can it be used to lay the groundwork for a superordinate goal? A country that "works" again, where the next generation can do better than the last.
Wilk, this resonates deeply. I’ve long believed that America’s greatness has never come from power or dominance, but from character, trust, and restraint. More than ten years ago, I wrote an essay called “What Is the Secret of America’s Success?” and reached much the same conclusion.
A nation that cannot disagree without hatred cannot remain free. Recovering the courage to be good again may be a long walk home—but it’s the only road worth taking. I am already talking about this in my speeches. My plan in 2026 is to travel more, connect more, and reach as many Americans as I can.
Wilk, I agree with you here, and I'm grateful you've taken the time to articulate this message for us all.
Not too long ago, as part of a segment we were preparing for our BA Debates Instagram, I responded to a prompt: "In this moment [in the wake of Charlie Kirk's murder], what are you afraid of losing?" I responded that the thing I'm most afraid of losing is our shared sense that as a people, as Americans, we're quite outgoing, friendly, and kind. I think these traits are a real part of our national connective tissue, but I worry that the more we see polarization around us, the more we'll lose the sense that they are distinctly American characteristics.
Part of the reason I'm in the courageous citizenship arena with you is because I believe our line of work can help preserve that reputation.
-SR
The pivotal argument in your well composed piece is this: "America’s greatness has always rested on ordinary people doing something extraordinary: disagreeing fiercely while remaining committed to the same constitutional order. Protecting liberty not only when it benefits us, but when it safeguards them."
this resonates well with one of my favorite documents of a 'Founder' tell us 'ordinary people' what the Founding intended, Jefferson's First Inaugural Address, where he said a lot - https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/jefinau1.asp - including this: "according to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. ..."
Jefferson reminds his audience of something some of them actually experienced in Europe - months, years, and decades of religious ideological civil wars, wars of conquest, genocidal wars (including against my ancestors who got to the 'new world' of the Virginia colony in the early part of the 18th century, bringing with them an ancient precious bible https://www.flickr.com/photos/wallyg/52155263408
Jefferson says that preserving the intentions of the American Founding relied on Enlightened reason/reasonableness. A Creator is not absent in the Founder's world view of Enlightened reason/reasonableness. But the Founders' Creator is not one who inspires religious intolerance and judgement-making that intends abuse, violence and others harms to follow Americans, or others. When Founders appealed to the Creator they hoped (and prayed) that Americans would support one another against 'religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered'.
Religious intolerance and its sibling political ideological intolerance are raging beasts all around us. And as Prophet Daniel observed in the 2nd century BC through waves of religious and political ideological intolerance of empire after empire in his world when religious powers and political powers combine GREAT BEASTS easily emerge.
We live in a relatable moment with Daniel, and others, where GREAT BEASTS desire their own vanity, fetishize their own power and glory, and command idolatry against the Creator, by doing what Jefferson said we must not forget, that "the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression."
It is hard for us 'ordinary people' to speak loud enough or act well enough - against such powerful BEASTS - to protect the liberties of others, because doing that protects our own liberties. Thank you for restating Jefferson's keep observation about the Founding in his First Inaugural.
Excellent Wilk! Articulate, accurate, and timely.
Well said! I hope all Americans read this essay and take it to heart. Keep up the great work you are doing!
Thank you, Joseph! Your kind words are greatly appreciated. Keep spreading the word my friend!
"Our rights come from our Creator." Good reminder, Wilk!
Right on about trust and character. You identified the corrosive powers of hate and coercion well.
I’m not sure what the founders had in mind exactly, but they were aware of the pitfalls of both an electorate and a dictator disrupting a nation. I fear they did not see the full potential for minority rule. They could not have seen the technology that is now available to implement that.
I am trying to explore not only the distrust that is expressed by large groups, but how that is sown, how a few with little moral mooring can build coalitions to circumvent the traditions that got us this far. The balance I have not figured out is how to hear, respond, and take care of the smaller voices, with policies and programs that work for everyone. A step toward that might be the insight that listening to understand is not compliance. Or paraphrasing you, liberty that benefits individuals and safeguards all.
Dear Wilk,
My thanks to you. And while I have the chance to communicate with you, thank you for the interview you had with Francis Collins. It gave real insight into how he thought.
thanks,
randy
🙏🏻 Thank you. There will be more to come on that front as well. Stay tuned and stay well Randy.
Dear Wilk,
Thank you for writing such a true, good, and beautiful essay.
thanks,
randy
Thank you Randy!
Dear Wilk,
Your essay "America Is Great Because WE Are Good" offers a sincere moral appeal at a moment when many Americans are exhausted by conflict. Your emphasis on trust, restraint, and civic decency resonates because those virtues are real — and endangered.
I believe moral appeals alone fail to preserve a republic. And this is where I feel your framing falls short.
You lean heavily on the idea that America's survival depends on renewed good faith across the political divide. That is true — as far as it goes. Yet you do not grapple with the harder reality that good faith is not always reciprocated, and that appeals to restraint can become liabilities when one side exploits them.
History is unambiguous on this point.
Alexis de Tocqueville did not believe democracies endure because citizens feel virtuous. He believed they endure because citizens practice self-government through institutions, associations, and sustained civic responsibility. Trust, in his account, was never sentimental. It was disciplined.
Abraham Lincoln understood this distinction viscerally. He spoke often of charity and reconciliation, yet when the constitutional order itself was threatened, he acted decisively. He did not confuse restraint with delay. He understood that preservation precedes reconciliation.
Martin Luther King Jr. was even more explicit. In Letter from Birmingham Jail, he warned that the greatest obstacle to justice was not extremism, but the white moderate who preferred "a negative peace which is the absence of tension" to a positive peace rooted in justice. King did not reject dialogue. He rejected comfort-seeking delay disguised as moral balance.
Your essay risks falling into precisely that trap.
By treating the current crisis primarily as a failure of mutual trust — rather than also as a failure of accountability — I fear you underestimate how democratic backsliding actually occurs. Republics do not usually fall because everyone stops being nice. They fall when norms are violated without consequence, when institutions hesitate to act, and when calls for restraint are applied asymmetrically.
This is where organizations like Braver Angels matter — and where they are often misunderstood.
Braver Angels was never designed to be an appeasement project. Its core discipline is disagreeing accurately without dehumanization, not suspending judgment or flattening moral distinctions. Civic trust, in this framework, is not the absence of tension. It is the capacity to hold tension inside defended rules.
Good faith is essential. It is also not self-enforcing. Without accountability, moral appeals become sermons delivered to those already inclined to listen — while others consolidate power unchecked.
You are right about what we need more of. It's just my opinion that it falls incomplete about what we need in addition.
A republic survives not only because its people aspire to be good, but also because they are willing to defend the structures that make goodness possible — even when that defense is uncomfortable, disruptive, and costly.
That is not a rejection of civic trust.
It is the only way civic trust survives.
One quibble - but it's a pretty big one. It has to do with the source of our common rights. It's does not come from any 'creator'. The Constitution is unequivocal. Just read the preamble. Our shared rights and freedoms come from 'we the people' That's it. That's sufficient. All that follows this clarity in the Constitution about the source of authority and personal autonomy derives fully from 'we the people', e pluribus unum. Not so much as a peep is there in this Constitution about any need or recognition or hat tip towards any kind of divine authority. Doing so reverses where our rights originate, where legitimate authority comes from: not above but from below, from 'we the people'. That is why this was a revolutionary form of government. So it's REALLY important to not pretend some 'creator' grants or gives out or favors some kind of authority; it EXACTLY the other way around. But don't take my word for it; reread the Constitution and verify this for yourself. Don't import some other meaning or intention (or the Declaration) to try to justify the role of any 'creator'. Just read the thing. And comprehend why any mention of any religious notions of authority are utterly absent. This is by design.
Agreed. To supplement this comment, I want to add that the Golden Rule approximates a universally held value, fundamental to a wide range of sectarian and secular positions expressed by humans without necessary resort to other concepts or entities. The Golden Rule leads logically to such concepts as liberty, tolerance, and the equal protection of the law, as well as to "derate the hate."
And what we call the Golden Rule long predates Christian scripture. In fact, I argue the core precept - reciprocity - is very much a part of our biology and an important aspect of human evolution. One takes not only a huge shortcut by assigning such neurology to 'religious belief' but diverts us from exploring and understanding its unifying core function.
Yes, one can conceive of an era prior to written history in which one caveman communicates to another, "I won't club your child, if you won't club mine." Conversely, reliance upon said authorities of a deity or deities has been historically devisive and continues to be so today.
Wilk, you write, "A republic depends on more than elections. It depends on norms, guardrails, and institutions—but above all, it depends on mutual trust and moral restraint." Do you agree that the dissemination of truth rather than falsehoods exemplifies moral restraint? If so, do you also agree that the dissemination of truth rather than falsehoods by leaders of government would be beneficial to the establishment of moral trust while the opposite would be harmful to the establishment of moral trust?
Yes
Thank you Mr Wilkinson for the 'like'. But that seems vain and hollow in light of ICE killing an American citizen when that is not their domain of law enforcement ... in you own state, Minnesota. Mr Jefferson's CLARITY and WISDOM - above in the quote I lifted from his First Inaugural Address, requires government accountability for the killing. That accountability should be TRANSPARENT to the public and NOT BURDENED BY MAGA-Political partisan B-S, deep 'Left' partisan B-S, or any other B-S. That requires an INDEPENDEENT investigation, analysis and report, and most Braver Angels (I believe) would agree, as the MN governor has requested, wouldn't you think?