Two Years and Counting

This week begins the third year of "America, America." I remain committed to speaking truth to power, addressing what's broken, advocating for democracy and justice—and building this community.

(Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)

Has it really been two years? Yes. Yes, it has. Honestly, it is hard to believe, which is why I decided I should go back and recount how America, America started and what I thought then. I wanted to take stock, not just of this publication but what’s transpired in the country since then. That’s a lot, but permit me to provide at least a few snapshots.

In February 2021, just weeks after the violent, world-altering January 6 insurrection and coup attempt, folks at Substack asked me if I’d be interested and willing to start a newsletter. Why me at that moment? Maybe because of this: That January my Twitter feed generated about 60 million impressions, or two million a day.

Suffice it to say, people were wound up, and Substack noticed many were seeking my thoughts to help make sense of what was happening in the country. Substack offered to fund me for a year if I’d publish two or three times a week (on whatever I chose to write). This was a chance to create something new—to build a subscriber base paragraph by paragraph, essay by essay.

How could I say no? The state of our democracy and the need for accountability and repair after the Capitol attack forced many of us to question what was going on and what we could do. America, America—what I said then would be “a plea and an ode”—was borne out of my belief that I could contribute to the dialogue and maybe shed some light on these dark times.

Democracy and justice. Politics and society. These were the frames within which to ring the alarm bell when needed and provide some inspiration when possible. Here’s how I put it when I launched:

The title should suggest the sense that America is not one thing: It is a combination of urgent dangers, troubled choices, broken promises—and a disturbingly large number of citizens bent on destroying democracy, abusing the vulnerable and undermining the prospects for a healthy future. But it is also a diverse nation of people who yearn and fight for justice, believe in democratic values like equality, recognize the necessity of empathy and kindness, and who take inspiration from efforts to create a more inclusive and equitable society.

So America, America will send dispatches of alarm and hope, of dark and light. It will follow my intense desire to address the dangers as vividly and directly as I can—and to think through the impulses, ideas and values that drive them. These observations may be influenced by anger and pain that our better instincts seem to be losing out to those who value power above all else. But there also will be dispatches of optimism and hope, genuine offerings of inspiration that seek to remind us that we are not alone and why the fight for better is worth it.

Would this work? Would there be subscribers to subscribe? Would there be readers to read and share their thoughts? These are the questions that anyone who starts a new publication asks, no matter how experienced or how confident they may be. It’s hard to overstate my gratitude to the founding members and early subscribers who gave me confidence that this was worth doing.

As America, America has grown from zero subscribers two years ago to nearly 25,000 today, I’ve become more clear that this work is not just about my writing (which now includes an archive of more than 400 essays, audio posts and other assets). It’s about forging a community of people who care about democracy and justice and whose shared voices in conversation with each other would help advance knowledge and strengthen the body politic. As the tagline asserts, we drive change together.

In revisiting the initial work, I saw that I considered calling this newsletter “Silence is Not an Option.” As I put it, “Because speaking out—writing what I think without fear of retribution—is what I increasingly understood is my responsibility….and the duty of each of us who care about the promise of America and a better life.”

That was a shift from an earlier time when I maintained journalistic detachment, tightly hewed to the facts. I hesitated to provide interpretation, let alone express my moral position or feelings. But, as I explained, “the daily degradations and desecrations by Trump and the support he garnered by so many changed that.” As I wrote in my very first piece:

I felt it was my obligation to tell the truth as clearly as I could. To say what I think and feel. To provide reminders of the difference between true and false, right and wrong, sanity and sheer madness. As a citizen, I could not stand idly by. I had to express my outrage at a time when our democracy, human decency, indeed reality itself, are under attack.

I obviously won’t recount all the work that’s followed, except to note that Donald Trump is still at large, misinformation about the Jan. 6 attack has escalated, the extremists continue to be empowered in their efforts to undermine democracy and support autocracy, the Republican Party has only grown more radical in its rejection of governance, and far too many Americans remain convinced of the Big Lie of election fraud. In short: The dangers facing democracy have not abated.

At the same time, in these two years President Biden has passed more legislation that genuinely improves lives than we had any reason to expect, America’s standing on the world stage has regained its luster and the country avoided a midterm Red Wave that would have been the election-deniers’ death knell for our democratic experiment. Tragically, the genocidal war waged by Vladimir Putin against the Ukrainians has provided the basis for NATO and the Western alliance to regain its unity and expanded vigor, but the leadership of Biden (and President Zelenksyy) offers genuine reason for pride and optimism about the future nonetheless.

Yet as we look ahead to the third year of America, America—and we can only hope for a drumbeat of indictments addressing the criminality of the former occupant of the White House—I somberly note the second piece written on March 1, 2021. Called “The Yearning for Justice,” I wrote with optimism that newly confirmed Attorney General Merrick Garland promised to confront “the accelerating danger of domestic terrorism by white supremacists” and his pledge to investigate Jan. 6 and all the leads “wherever they take us.” Two years ago, he called the insurrection “the most heinous attack on the democratic process that I’ve ever seen.”

Two years on, that anti-democratic ringleader not only remains free from charges, he’s pursuing another run to take back the White House. Two years on, we are still waiting for the attorney general to do his part in holding the guilty accountable, securing the rule of law and giving Americans even the semblance that no one is above the law. If we are to turn a corner and have a real chance to repair, we must address the most egregious among us. As I stated then:

The shameless rejection of justice and truth has often been overwhelming during the last four years. It’s not that Trump invented flagrant violations of law or is the first White House occupant to abandon the ideal of equality and the duty to serve our most vulnerable populations. This has been going on for a long time at the upper echelons of power in America. 

No, the intolerable thing was that that he openly, sadistically relished abandoning the values and ideals enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence—“that all men are created equal”—and he found so many willing and arrogant accomplices.

Amid that horror, I noted, has been “the rising hunger for justice. To set things right. To repair and improve our democracy. To form a more perfect union.”

I believe our hunger for justice and the repair of democracy has only intensified. The work of speaking truth to power, confronting what (and who) is broken, and advocating for justice remains urgent. I hope you will continue to be a part of this growing community and tell others that America, America is just getting started.

For two years, paid subscribers have helped advance this work. Please become one if you’re not already.