26 Lessons for 2026 - Part I

In moments of uncertainty, it can be tempting to look outward for a savior – a brilliant leader, a rock-solid institution, or your favored political party. When it comes to the future of the United States, that’s a mistake.

Whether you call it a constitutional republic or a democracy, our real strength has never come from the top. It comes from ordinary people when we decide that our values, our voices, and our actions matter. However small those may seem, we have power.

After all, our form of government is not self-executing; it relies on millions of us choosing to stay informed, speak up, and act, even when it feels inconvenient or unpopular. (See #4.)

Many people don’t realize this but just over 100 years ago, the United States faced challenges like what we’re facing today. After the industrial revolution, millions were uprooted from farms and forced into factory towns and crowded cities, economic inequality widened, politics was openly corrupt, trust was deeply fractured, and racial terror intensified as Jim Crow laws codified segregation.

In short, the country was a mess. And you know what people did?

They rallied. They rebuilt. The early 1900s were when settlement houses began, offering job training, arts programs and political education. Service clubs like Rotary, Kiwanis, and Lions began popping up all over the country, along with Elks, Moose, and Knights of Columbus, the NAACP and National Urban League, and League of Women Voters.*

We need to find that inside ourselves again today.

When we remember our own agency, our perspective shifts: we stop feeling like unbuckled passengers in a runaway political moment and start acting like the authors of our shared future that we are.

(*Give yourself the gift of reading David Eisner’s account of this era.)

The shift we need is more than just perspective; it’s our very identity. Alongside the myriad identities we hold – brother, niece, grandparent, trucker, nurse, artist, Coloradan, Minnesotan, Hispanic, Brazilian, Singaporean, Christian, Muslim, etc. – citizen should make our lists.

As Harry Boyte has warned, many have been lulled into seeing citizenship as a form of consumerism: citizens as passive recipients of services and benefits in the transactional marketplace of politics. Such impressions miss a world of opportunity, responsibility, and privilege.

If you hear “citizenship” as a legal status we hold, you’re not alone. It took me several months to broaden what I hear to include being a member of a nationwide community.

Today, I understand citizenship is a relationship - a reciprocal one - between each of us and the country we share.

Today, I hear “citizenship” as something we do.

Today, I hear “citizen” as an identity that can be a source of belonging, pride, and connection.

As former Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter once said of the United States, “The highest office is the office of citizen.” Many of us have forgotten that we hold this office - or were never taught in the first place. While some would prefer that we all forget, we citizens do still have power – or “civic muscle,” as we say in Braver Angels.

The more we practice civic engagement and the more we “flex our civic muscle,” the more our identity will shift and we’ll experience ourselves as contributors to a shared stewardship - not spectators.

As Valerie Lemmie from the Kettering Foundation reminded us at NCoC, many mistakenly think being a citizen is only two things: voting and obeying laws. Thinking of completing your ballot as the only expression of civic power is like exercising once a year and assuming you’re fit. Similarly, not breaking laws is a low bar - the civic health equivalent of not having ice cream every day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Given this shrunken view of citizenship, it’s no surprise much of our civic muscle has atrophied (especially when realities like dark money and gerrymandering hamstring our voting power).

But here’s good news: no matter our age or circumstances, we can build that muscle back. Citizenship is exercised daily, not annually. It is lived through community relationships, shared stewardship, and the ongoing work of strengthening our neighborhoods, communities, and country. We’ll detail how in our November webinar the day after Thanksgiving – and you don’t even need to get off the couch to join.

In using that muscle, you’ll feel your own power. As Wilk Wilkerson of Braver Angels explains, our sense of agency expands with action.

It's the IKEA effect on a bigger scale: we value what we help build.

Just like working other muscles, using your civic muscle isn’t always comfortable. In fact, being involved in your community or in public life can be incredibly uncomfortable. It’s easier not to find out what people in your community care about, not ask questions at a town meeting, not to learn more about local issues, not to correct a piece of misinformation in a group chat, and not to talk to people who disagree with you. And it’s certainly easier not to put together a citizens gathering when you know someone who has threatened violence is going to show up:

All those examples of civic engagement take courage. And when we use that word, let’s be clear about two things:

1. Courage isn’t about being fearless, never feeling nervous, and always being certain. It’s about feeling the fear, nerves, and uncertainty and showing up anyway.

2. Courage isn’t just for superheroes. Yes, these are challenging times, but there is space – and need – for everyday people across the country to find the way to contribute their talent, time, and treasure to our shared future. (See #15.)

If there’s a common thread through examples of engaged citizenship I’ve seen across the country, it’s how much happens behind the scenes. For every step forward, there are countless meetings. For every public meeting, there are months of coordination. For every 5-minute video, there’s a thousand-fold in planning and editing. For every one-hour webinar, there’s twenty-fold in preparation and follow-up.

At NCoC, Jillian Youngblood from Civic Genuis shared the example of the considerable volunteer time that goes into keeping one Girl Scout troop together. Personally, I know how many hours I volunteer with Braver Angels, and deeply appreciate the time volunteers across the country freely give to support the organization.

In addition to time for coordination, there’s a vital need for emotional intelligence and social awareness. The Needham Resilience Network is a great example of this EQ in action. As Dr. Nichole Argo shared at the Bridging Summit, prior to any gatherings, the Network has 1:1 conversations to ensure people feel prepared, safe, and welcome to join.

This is particularly important when some voices have never been heard, where people with important things to share aren’t yet seen as “leaders,” or where some may not feel like they belong.* Beyond that, there are the logistics of ensuring transportation, compensating time away from work, securing childcare and other considerations.

This isn’t the work that shows up in headlines or news clips, but it is the work that brings and holds communities together.

(*For more on these concepts, check out Nina Simon's book The Art of Relevance.)

What fuels all of this work – visibile and invisible? Vinay Orekondy of Better Together America clearly answered that question at NCoC: We can’t solve problems if we aren’t talking to each other – and if we don’t care about each other.

Knowing our own power isn’t enough; we need to be connected to other people and care what happens to them. That may seem simple as you read this post, but consider how divisions across the country look – and sound – in practice. Odds are you’ve seen or heard examples of the 4Ds in comments, social posts, conversations, or elsewhere: dissociate; devalue; dehumanize; destroy.

This 4D slope begins with “they are different than us,” moves to “their difference makes them less valuable than us,” which leads to a profound lack of empathy, and ends with the ability to destroy others because, after all, they aren’t really human anyway.

I heard another form of this disconnect at the Principles First conference earlier this year, when a speaker wisely noted that rather than recognize the real problems people are facing, some treat those people as if they are the problem to be solved. That, too, is demoralizing and dehumanizing.

Surrounded by messages of “us v. them,” it can be tempting to sever connection to “them,” but that’s the civic equivalent of cutting off one of your own hands. Can you count the number of tasks in your day that would drastically change if you lost your left or right hand? When it comes to the civic body* as a whole, severing connection to “them” is severing the possibility of real, lasting solutions.

(*If you aren’t familiar with that phrase, or even if you think you are, you’ll want to hear Dr. Allison Ralph’s talk on the topic.)

So, let’s say your community is politically active. You’re off the civic couch, knocking on doors, pushing yard signs into the ground, and cheering for “your team” to head to the polls. You might assume you’re civically healthy. Unfortunately, that’s not necessarily true.

Recall the state of Georgia’s recent elections, both the special session Senate election and gubernatorial races. Well, as we discussed at NCoC, despite the enormous energy around those races, the state still ranks 48th in child well-being. This mismatch underscores a crucial truth: more political activity does not automatically translate to stronger communities.

As being a citizen is about more than voting (#3), civic health is about more than political campaigns and elections. Civic health addresses what’s important in people’s daily lives, e.g., education, safety, belonging, and economic opportunity.

To address those priorities, many look to “Uncle Sam” by default. But federal officials just set a record for the number of days the U.S. government shut down. Too many of those officials operate as if “community” means “my party.” Looking to Washington, D.C. to save us is like expecting five minutes a day with a broken shake weight to build all the muscle you’ll ever need.

Yes, there are glimmers of hope from D.C., but if we wait for Congress or the White House to model healthier behavior, we’ll be skeletons gathering dust on the civic couch.

Daniel Stid of the American Enterprise Institute offered a less grim perspective at NCoC, explaining that while our national attention fixates on Washington, our actual lives are decentralized: we’re governed and resourced at the state and local levels.

In other words, civic opportunity lives close to home, not far away.

Looking local doesn’t mean transferring unrealistic expectations of federal officials to local officials instead. We need to collectively DIY – or DIO? DO IT OURSELVES.

We know citizen-led action is do-able because it’s already being done. People across the country know local problems are easier to see, local people are easier to reach, and local solutions… well, they aren’t always easy, but they are possible. And, like a capstan pulling in the anchor that’s been slowing us down, each turn gets easier as more people lean in and momentum grows. (Ditto for the Civic Action-Engine!)

At the same time, that local focus doesn’t mean we ignore the rest of the country. This is the American experiment, remember? And like the 20 or so centers around the world that each had dozens of teams involved in the Human Genome Project, we need to stay connected across communities and states, share ideas, and build on each other’s successes.

We’re not choosing local over national; we’re starting where we have the most influence while seeing the bigger picture.

Among the many reasons I appreciate Braver Angels’ approach is the reminder that political disagreement on its own isn’t a problem; as “Reds” in particular know, healthy democracies depend on healthy debate. What’s hurting us now is how:

1. We’ve become so outraged at “the other side” that we won’t even speak to “them;”

2. People have productized that outrage; and

3. So many of us regularly consume that toxic product.

In our ComNet panel about Politics, Proximity, & Purpose: The Impact of Your Organization's Communication in a Polarized Landscape, Sandra Brownrigg, co-chair of the Southern Front Range Alliance of Braver Angels, cautioned attendees not to fall prey to the Industrial Outrage Complex, i.e., media outlets, influencers, and algorithms that benefit from keeping angry and fearful so we keep clicking, sharing, and staying tuned in. These conflict entrepreneurs generate a constant stream of content designed to make us feel threatened by people who think differently.

This content chips away at trust, makes compromise look weak, and convinces us “others” aren’t human – i.e., it wants us to forget #6. As conflict entrepreneurs rake in the money, we pay the price in strained relationships with family, friends, and neighbors. Being constantly primed for battle takes a toll on us mentally and physically and leaves us less safe and less effective.

Recognizing how the outrage machine works is an important flexing of civic muscle. That recognition doesn’t magically fix polarization, but we know we’re being played, we can make more intentional choices about where we get our information and how we engage with each other.

A basic rule of communication is “know your audience.” Communications professionals may be tempted to interpret that as segmenting audiences based on age, geography, income, gender, or any other number of demographics. Further, many default to sharing messages that matter to their organization’s leadership or funders.

Instead, as Sofi Andorsky of Third Plateau clearly reminded attendees at our ComNet panel, to be effective communicators and bridge-builders, we must speak to people based on how they relate to the world, not based on our internal priorities or what funders expect. To reach people, we need to focus on what matters to them and find their shared interests and values. (Braver Angels does this in Braver Arts and Braver Faith, for example.)

As the “Let’s Talk” exhibit at the National Liberty Museum in Philadelphia explains, we often share more values than we realize, we just rank them in a different order. For example, a message that leads with the value of care sounds different than leading with security, which sounds different than leading with freedom, even if all three values are widely shared. This fact was a relief to one panel attendee who lives in a “deep red” state and appreciated the “reminder that working together doesn’t have to mean abandoning what I believe.”

Knowing how people relate to the world isn’t as easy as sorting by zip code, which is why I’m already looking forward to our May 2026 webinar with Democracy 2076. Referencing research the organization has done with Harmony Labs, Dr. Melody Mohebi shared what sounds like the best online quiz ever: name your four favorite TV shows and we can tell you what you value. Intrigued? Join us in May.

Another common mistake in this era of fragmented information consumption is assuming big numbers indicate meaningful impact. A survey Sofi’s organization undertook found that communications teams across the country spend a lot of time communicating only to members of Congress and elected officials. The survey also revealed that many teams spend more time promoting programs than building a broader audience.

Translation: many in the depolarization/pro-democracy field are failing to reach the general public.

Even harsher translation: we’re talking to ourselves.

While metrics like earned media and shares on social have their place, we need to prioritize connection. Connection is what actually makes a difference, and authenticity begets connection. That can look like letting go of some control and letting people carry your message in their own words.

For example, when PopPop called for more civic engagement while floating down the James River with Team Democracy, he used his own words to speak to his own growing audience.

Big problems can require big coalitions, which is why I’ve written before about a “big tent.”

Two things are crucial in constructing that tent: 1) define it by what we’re for, not what (or whom) we’re against; and 2) don’t ask people to leave our differences at the door – er, flap – of the tent.

The goal of the big tent must be a positive vision for our shared future. When the tent is built around a shared vision rather than a shared enemy, more people can see themselves in it. And when more people can see themselves in it, we’re far better equipped to tackle the challenges ahead. The most inspiring thinking I’ve seen recently is this honest, inclusive, and forward-looking paper by the U.S. Baha'i Office of Public Affairs:

When it comes to resisting the urge to work in isolated circles of people who already think exactly like we do, I’m grateful to Heidi and Guy Burgess, longtime scholars of conflict transformation and Co-Directors of the Conflict Information Consortium. (You'll want to subscribe to their Substack, Beyond Intractability.)

They remind us that large-scale social challenges can only be addressed through “massively parallel” efforts, i.e., many groups, with different perspectives and different strengths, all working toward a shared horizon. (Or third horizon, as some theories posit.)

In their view, the point isn’t to iron out every disagreement or erase ideological diversity; it’s to create enough connection, trust, and coordination that people can move in the same general direction without needing perfect alignment. And I’m grateful to Walt Roberts for hosting IMIP, the InterMovement Impact Project, his co-creator Caleb Christen, and all who participate with the goal of building that connection, trust, and coordination.